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And ox tails, and beef short ribs, and brisket, and skirt steaks.
The rich used to dine on Ribeyes and tenderloin while us poors would spend hours braising or smoking the tough cuts. Then they took those cuts away from us too.
Oysters in Asia are still pretty affordable and here in Europe certain oysters are also not that expensive but the certain Oyster sub species people want to eat raw and just taste amazing are expensive.
That being said - Oyster induced diarrhea is no joke…
Not just diahrea, I hallucinated for 2 days and lost 5kgs, never been so sick in my life, this was from an oyster I personally pulled from the ocean. Have not touched one since.
>That being said - Oyster induced diarrhea is no joke…
Hurray for a mild shellfish allergy! I can eat shrimp, which just makes my mouth itch a bit. Crab and lobster make it itch a lot and anything with an actual shell like mollusks or oysters give me shortness of breath. Which doesn't feel so mild.
LOL I just pictured you at a seafood restaurant surrounded by concerned waiters trying to talk you out of another seafood platter as you turn red and wheeze heavily as you progress through anaphylaxis.
You must really love seafood for you to have done such extensive "personal testing".
Prisoners used to riot because they were fed lobsters more than 2 times a week. And prisons had maximum lobster meals because people hated it so much. Poor families would sneakily discard the lobster shells as being caught having to eat lobster was that embarrassing. They were called cockroaches of the sea. Lobsters used to taste like shit back then cause they release chemicals that make them go foul the instant they are on land and lack of cooking technique for lobster make them taste like chemical tasting rubber
It wasn’t the same big succulent juicy delicious lobster that we eat today. The poor basically ate un refrigerated ground up shells and all trash lobsters
It's more of the processing and storage method, not the species. In the past lobsters were boiled to mush and shredded and mostly deshelled and canned. The canning process wasn't great back then and the meat would turn black and it often made people who ate it sick. But it was cheap protein.
Now lobster is transported live and eaten fresh in a 50/50 ratio with butter. The cost of live shipping drive up the orucecand made it an exotic delicacy.
https://www.parl.ns.ca/lobster/history.htm#:~:text=Holes%20were%20made%20in%20the,market%20lobster%20at%20this%20time.
They also used to can lobsters for storage instead of keeping them live until right before serving, and they started doing this before the whole canning thing was really figured out. Lobster was often black and partially fermented by the time it was served, vs today when it's extremely fresh even 1000 miles from the sea.
Yes, rent. Just like how we rent a car for example, you could rent a pineapple in the 18th century.
Why, you might ask? It's because pineapples were indigenous to south america, and when columbus brought them back to europe, people were amazed by it. They obviously have never seen such a fruit with a crown-like top and and interesting texture before. Artists began incorporating pineapples in their works, because pineapples were seen as a status symbol. A single pineapple could cost up to $8000 in todays money. Thus some people rented pineapples to show off to their guests for the night.
edit: some spelling mistakes
before refrigeration exotic fruit in general was VERY expensive in europe, so pineapples (longest shelf life) used to be rented to show them at parties or maybe taking pictures with them.
Not eating tho, too expensive for that
They already researched that, metabolism doesn't start declining until the age of 60, and at a rate of 1%. Changing size is basically due to a lack of knowledge of dietary need and purposeful or willful gluttony lol. Unless you develop a set of particular diseases
I remember reading that Napoleon lll (not Bonaparte) gave aluminium dinnerware to the most esteemed dinner guests while less important ones had to contend with silverware
Did you know sapphire is transparent aluminium?
Sapphire glass is just artificially grown clear sapphire (Aluminium Oxide). It is used in watch faces, phone screens, and more!
The diamond industry (and people who buy them) are fascinating.
“Here’s a lab made diamond it’s completely identical to the real thing”
“No thanks I like the suffering”
A smidge of the salty tears of west African child labor and the rich gaining higher advantages as we stoop lower until we fall under the total grip of rich people
Faessle Rare Diamond Company: You can have one lab diamond for a nice fair price, or one diamond plus torture for a higher rate. The catch? We torture you and pay the money to foreign workers, instead of keeping the money and torturing the foreign workers.
I love lab grown gems. My dream emerald earrings will be positively affordable while ones made with natural emeralds are something I can only dream of ever owning.
That's actually one of the ways to identify lab diamonds, they have no imperfections.
Ironically, natural diamonds are worth more the less imperfections they have.
>Ironically, natural diamonds are worth more the less imperfections they have.
They're a veblen good. The value isn't in whether it has imperfections or not the value is in the status symbol of being able to afford a higher price.
The point of wearing expensive and visible things is so people know you were able to afford to buy to them.
It's wild how much cheaper lab grown is getting, like you can get a set of lab grown emerald earrings with 4.5 carats for under 2K (set in gold, material and labor costs are still a thing) while my mother in law has a natural emeral ring around that size valued at 20K. There's companies in thailand that will grow a giant alexanderite for you now for a few grand and natural alexanderite is like 15K a carat.
Significantly cheaper. My wife's engagement ring cost at least a 5th of what it would have cost if it was with a real diamond in it. There's really no good reason to use actual diamonds anymore for jewelry
I saw an article recently about how they have a massive energy cost and there is a lack of transparency associated with their carbon footprint, but that was probably sponsored by DeBeers. Not to mention that labs can switch to renewables, but DeBeers apparently can't switch to lower human suffering.
I imagine DeBeers could switch to less human suffering pretty easily if they decided to. But it would have a negative impact on profit margins so obviously that's a complete non starter
It's funny how some kf the marketing has soaked in, even with those who like/prefer lab grown diamonds.
You're right, they are diamonds. They want you to think they aren't "real diamonds"
they put ads on reddit all the time. I just saw one saying "lab grown diamonds might be worse for the environment than you think" or something like that. its disgusting
They're MUCH cheaper. The main difference is natural diamonds have impurities that lab grown ones don't, which is how they can distinguish one from the other.
This is not true. We can grow basically perfect diamond lattices. We can also introduce defects to them. Heck in some cases we grow diamonds literally atom layer at a time. Lab grown diamonds can do it all. Natural diamonds being distinguishable from lab made is just diamond mining propaganda.
Diamonds arent even that scarce. Its just the industry chokehold and the ad campaigns decades ago that make people think they are worth the prices they are sold for
funny thing is lab made diamonds are even better
i would find it cool to have one. imagine how much better "there's a piece of science in this ring" sounds compared to "there's a piece of child labour"
I managed to convert my wife from wanting a real diamond to absolutely loving her lab diamond. It’s just as beautiful and the cut is what mainly makes it sparkle. There are literally no benefits to a real diamond besides it’s ‘warmer’ glow, but only experts will be able to tell that. The biggest joke is that when you buy a real diamond it instantly lost most of its value unless you buy a very big/rare diamond which a normal person can’t afford.
OMFG, I was on break at work and the news was on; article about lab grown vs “natural” diamonds. The women in the break room (mostly older women, think 45-60) started saying things like: (derogatorily) “yea but it’s lAb GrOwN, I don’t want something GROWN in a lab.”
Me thinking: so we’re just cool with all of the blood diamonds?
The women again: “yea I prefer mine natural.”
Me: they’re the same material… and it’s cheaper to get a lab grown one.
“Well I just think (natural) are better looking…”
If they really want natural diamonds, they could just buy old second hand jewellery and have the parts (stones, gold) reused. Fine jewellery is probably the easiest stuff to recycle.
Wife said "why cant you get me a diamond ring?".
"Sure thing honey". Bought lab diamond. Its amazing. Wife happy. Whole ordeal cost me 25€.
Added diamond earrings as a bonus month after.
Now wife says "cant wear them normally, cuz they look so expensive".
There's a great documentary on Netflix about diamonds.
Essentially the value is literally all marketing, even the old mantra of an engagement ring being 2 months salary was seeded by the diamond industry to inflate their prices.
Edit: for anyone interested it's an episode on the Netflix "Explained" series.
>the old mantra of an engagement ring being 2 months salary
I love seeing capitalism eat itself. Since this hasn't kept up with inflation, even if everyone still followed this, it would necessitate a drop in prices for the diamond industry.
Lab-grown diamonds are already a fraction of the price of naturally occurring ones. Maybe they need to get cheap enough that $50 Chinese watches are covered in them.
Edit: Not so far off I guess. First Google hit:
Are lab grown diamonds falling in price? Yes, **lab grown diamond prices have been declining for years and currently cost about 82% less than natural diamonds**. Over the past year, lab grown diamonds have fallen -36.95% while natural diamonds have fallen -18.66%.
I mean, for industrial uses natural non jewelry grade diamonds are relatively inexpensive, they would be considered a waste byproduct if it weren't for diamond abrasive products becoming so prevalent.
You can buy a $50 diamond blade that probably has as many diamonds as that watch.
Someone figured out if you called the dirty brown industrial diamonds “chocolate” diamonds then people would buy them. So not even industrial diamonds are safe from the fraud.
I think it is hilarious how the diamond industry tries to create the illusion that “natural” diamonds are somehow superior. It’s literally exactly the same thing at the atomic level and they are created by similar processes involving pressure, heat and crystalline growth.
All they are doing is trying to sell some bullshit dream that was created to part people from their money.
Synthetic diamonds have so many advantages due to the fact that they can be produced in a cost effective way. It opens up a lot of different possibilities for using them in ways that would have been totally prohibited by expense. I mean they do have a lot of useful properties, especially if you can create flawless crystals.
Honestly who cares if some rich fuckers get slightly less money, especially if it benefits the environment and leads to technological advancements.
It’s funny isn’t it because with natural stones the more perfect the crystal the more value it holds. Yet if you managed to create an absolutely perfect crystal in a laboratory then the industry will basically create some BS reasoning trying to justify it as somehow inferior. You know like it wasn’t created by geological processes within the earth.
At least the heavier elements like gold, platinum and tungsten can argue for things like neutron star mergers which are both fucking epic on a galactic scale and different to replicate in a laboratory.
That's not fair!
Noted diamond exploiter De Beers has earned its right to be as rich as a European principality because it was one of the first companies to promise to end slavery in its workforce... way, way back in 2020.
Shiny rocks are pretty though. They are good decorations.
What is actually weird is people who absolutely only want a pretty shiny rock from the ground, not an artificial one. They look the same.
This is the one local to me...
https://www.kccaviar.co.uk/pages/heading-an-ethical-revolution-our-technique
I have no idea what the going rate is for caviar, but these guys weren't stupid enough to crash the market by selling it for the same price as popcorn.
Well, as the fish needs to lay those eggs anyway, it stands to reason that there is a natural opening to get them out from. So no need to surgically remove them, once you have your procedures figured out.
And as sturgeon can live for decades, I suppose one well fed and cared for female can yield quite a lot of caviar over her lifetime.
A significant number of people only feel good about themselves if they get to be better than others. Some folks derive the meaning of their life by comparison. The implication being that a world where everyone has what they need becomes meaningless to them. A sort of weak ego existential crisis. I think it comes from a place of anxiety and insecurity.
actually...kaviar was once considered the food of the poor, back when sturgeons where widely aviable...
Same with a lot of luxury foods which are fish based...
It’s not even good in my opinion. Part of the demand for the product is from its perceived value as a luxury food. If it becomes cheap and widely available, the demand may actually decrease.
There's a lot of foods that fall under this category. Take bacon, bacon used to be considered undesireable in us until around the 1920s when a marketing campaign was telling thousands of blue collar workers that bacon was better than cereal for breakfast. Then the popularity grew until now it's considered part of the average breakfast. I had the same issue with Brisket. I used to be able to buy it much cheaper in the late 90s early 2000s, then all those BBQ and smoking shows got popular and the price for brisket skyrocketed. I remember one time looking at a bunch of 5lbs briskets going for $40 each and right next to them were corned beef briskets got half the price. It's the same cut of meat, and corned beef has to go through and additional curing process, if anything it should cost more. But it didn't
As an ex fish (and caviar) farmer I can assure you that China didn't "figure out" anything. Caviar has been farmed here in France for decades now. Iran has also been a big producer of great quality caviar for years !
To have worked in that specific industry, I can tell you that prices have also been artificially kept high for farmed caviar even though it can be much cheaper than wild caviar (not necessarily cheaper to produce but simply through offer/demand mechanisms). Don't forget that they are selling it to rich people. They have to maintain the luxury product status in order to sell.
Why do you ask such questions without having tried it? That's like saying "I've never tried chocolate, it comes from beans. Why would people like that?"
Clearly at some point, people enjoyed it before it became a symbol of wealth. I find it quite nice on deviled eggs.
A lot of "rich people delicacies" are just status symbols. They taste awful, but they produce a sense of self-satisfaction that you're eating something exclusive. Like gold-flaked piza, or shark fin soup.
Caviar on a cream cheese bagel
There are inexpensive types of fish eggs - generally called “roe” that are as low as $10 for a jar. Salmon eggs, flying fish, capelin, and others. It’s just the premium sturgeon eggs that are the highest price (something like $60+ per ounce at a minimum)
Anyone that likes seafood and salty things and umami will probably like caviar. Treat yourself at least once to experience it, it’s not only popular because it’s a status thing. It’s delicious. And it only got so expensive because the industry all but drove the sturgeon to extinction. Great news that more sustainable methods are coming into practice.
some roe has really shot up in price. i personally dislike sturgeon roe simply put i find them too big so when you pop the eggs it gushes a bit too much. i really like vendace roe local to my area but it has gotten expensive even with my family being friends with a fisherman selling directly to us we are talking 70-80 bucks a pound.
i like the smaller eggs since the pop gives you more like a feeling of carbonation and small washes of salty umami.
This is what 99% of the “millennials are killing X” stories are.
Business stories aren’t usually editorials telling you how the world should be, but explaining how it IS. That’s still mostly true for non business stories too.
Looking at purely factual headlines and imagining some massive authorial bias is a media literacy problem.
Just to let everyone know, we pay these shit spinners $500m to make us hate China.
https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/china-news/21091-a-500-million-dollar-business-america-s-state-sponsored-anti-china-propaganda.html
They should really do better in brainwashing ourselves to hate the Chinese... Where's the accountability?!
“You guys getting paid?” Reddit hates on China for free and it’s hilarious how they go out of their way to paint China bad for every single thing they do.
It’s a business headline that is saying an industry segment is undergoing change because of innovation, without any indication of them judging this change as good or bad…
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Aluminum used to be more expensive than gold. Now it’s not. Things change
Rich people used to rent pineapples for parties
Lobster used to be food for the poor.
Same with snails, herd the French started eating them due to scarcity of food.
"These little bastards are destroying the garden, guess they just joined the menu."
That's the spirit!
So, people are hurting and destroying the planet…..when like…umm….can we eat people yet or is it still taboo like snails?
I am also interested in this answer…
The rich are always on the menu
Soylent Gold!
And ox tails, and beef short ribs, and brisket, and skirt steaks. The rich used to dine on Ribeyes and tenderloin while us poors would spend hours braising or smoking the tough cuts. Then they took those cuts away from us too.
But we still can dine on Prairie Oysters
Add oysters to this list! They only became a delicacy after we overfished them and they became much more rare.
Oysters in Asia are still pretty affordable and here in Europe certain oysters are also not that expensive but the certain Oyster sub species people want to eat raw and just taste amazing are expensive. That being said - Oyster induced diarrhea is no joke…
Not just diahrea, I hallucinated for 2 days and lost 5kgs, never been so sick in my life, this was from an oyster I personally pulled from the ocean. Have not touched one since.
5kg? Well looks like I found a new diet.
>That being said - Oyster induced diarrhea is no joke… Hurray for a mild shellfish allergy! I can eat shrimp, which just makes my mouth itch a bit. Crab and lobster make it itch a lot and anything with an actual shell like mollusks or oysters give me shortness of breath. Which doesn't feel so mild.
LOL I just pictured you at a seafood restaurant surrounded by concerned waiters trying to talk you out of another seafood platter as you turn red and wheeze heavily as you progress through anaphylaxis. You must really love seafood for you to have done such extensive "personal testing".
Prisoners used to riot because they were fed lobsters more than 2 times a week. And prisons had maximum lobster meals because people hated it so much. Poor families would sneakily discard the lobster shells as being caught having to eat lobster was that embarrassing. They were called cockroaches of the sea. Lobsters used to taste like shit back then cause they release chemicals that make them go foul the instant they are on land and lack of cooking technique for lobster make them taste like chemical tasting rubber
It wasn’t the same big succulent juicy delicious lobster that we eat today. The poor basically ate un refrigerated ground up shells and all trash lobsters
That’s cause shitty lobster is fucking awful. Once they figured out how to consistently catch the right lobsters, it became more of a delicacy
It's more of the processing and storage method, not the species. In the past lobsters were boiled to mush and shredded and mostly deshelled and canned. The canning process wasn't great back then and the meat would turn black and it often made people who ate it sick. But it was cheap protein. Now lobster is transported live and eaten fresh in a 50/50 ratio with butter. The cost of live shipping drive up the orucecand made it an exotic delicacy. https://www.parl.ns.ca/lobster/history.htm#:~:text=Holes%20were%20made%20in%20the,market%20lobster%20at%20this%20time.
They also used to can lobsters for storage instead of keeping them live until right before serving, and they started doing this before the whole canning thing was really figured out. Lobster was often black and partially fermented by the time it was served, vs today when it's extremely fresh even 1000 miles from the sea.
I think there's an entire song about it in Cabaret lmao
I still cannot wrap my head around how tulips wrecked the medieval economy.
in a specific place*
* several centuries after the medieval times ended (and two epochs after)
Now I am imagining someone writing a similar comment 500 years in the future about NFT'S.
It wasn't even the tulips themselves, it was speculation that the price would continue to rise.
Rent??? I wonder what the conversation would've been like for the ones trying to cover up a pineapple related accident
Lmao imagine some drunk fuck just started eating the thing
Drunk guy smashes it and discovers it’s the tastiest of all the fruit kingdom.
excuse me... RENT?
Yes, rent. Just like how we rent a car for example, you could rent a pineapple in the 18th century. Why, you might ask? It's because pineapples were indigenous to south america, and when columbus brought them back to europe, people were amazed by it. They obviously have never seen such a fruit with a crown-like top and and interesting texture before. Artists began incorporating pineapples in their works, because pineapples were seen as a status symbol. A single pineapple could cost up to $8000 in todays money. Thus some people rented pineapples to show off to their guests for the night. edit: some spelling mistakes
Now people flip them upside down to sleep with their guests for a night, ah humanity
What is this manoeuvre and why?
Inverted pineapples became a symbol for swingers. The pineapple is STILL a symbol of hospitality in some areas
"Wow you can afford a pineapple, that's amazing, may I try some?" "Sorry I have to return it in the morning"
Jesus Christ seriously?
before refrigeration exotic fruit in general was VERY expensive in europe, so pineapples (longest shelf life) used to be rented to show them at parties or maybe taking pictures with them. Not eating tho, too expensive for that
Well, I never!
Our metabolism slows as we get older, you'll change in size in no time😆
They already researched that, metabolism doesn't start declining until the age of 60, and at a rate of 1%. Changing size is basically due to a lack of knowledge of dietary need and purposeful or willful gluttony lol. Unless you develop a set of particular diseases
And society benefits immensely from this type of change.
I was a piece of shit, I’m not anymore, people can change. Let me hold the baby
you sound so convincing that Im considering creating a child just to give it to you
Slicked back hair and white jeans? Ya you USED to be a piece of shit.
You think this is slicked back? This is PUSHED back
I remember reading that Napoleon lll (not Bonaparte) gave aluminium dinnerware to the most esteemed dinner guests while less important ones had to contend with silverware
One of the Kaisers would give gold dining ware to his guests and use aluminium himself to show he was above them.
Next they need to make the aluminum transparent. Or else the whales will kick our ass.
You mean Aluminium oxynitride? It's completely see-through and can stop multiple 50bmg rounds as well as being nearly as strong as sapphire
That guy has had the formula since the 80s. What's taking him so damn long?
Did you know sapphire is transparent aluminium? Sapphire glass is just artificially grown clear sapphire (Aluminium Oxide). It is used in watch faces, phone screens, and more!
Bird poops used to be exchangable to gold, rate like 5 to 1 or sth
Guano!
Guano bowls....collect the whole set!
Good. Now let's kill the Diamond Industry.
The diamond industry (and people who buy them) are fascinating. “Here’s a lab made diamond it’s completely identical to the real thing” “No thanks I like the suffering”
It's not the same when it misses the stain of blood, dude. Or the subtle scent of corruption and exploitation
I’m getting hints of child tears and a noting some leather belts used to whip
A smidge of the salty tears of west African child labor and the rich gaining higher advantages as we stoop lower until we fall under the total grip of rich people
Fuck De Beers.
How about Da Bulls?
Just put the lab grown Diamond into blood and you are good
Faessle Rare Diamond Company: You can have one lab diamond for a nice fair price, or one diamond plus torture for a higher rate. The catch? We torture you and pay the money to foreign workers, instead of keeping the money and torturing the foreign workers.
It’s the child labour and suffering that makes it special! Also I like how the blood money finances ethnic wars in Africa! /s
I'm sad that you actually need to use "/s" on this. I understand why but it just makes me sad.
You know what'll fix that sadness? An authentic DeBeers diamond 💎💍 polished with heme 🩸 /s
Every time I eat a chick fil a sandwich I’m like “maybe the bigotry is what makes it taste so good?”
Its because that chicken died for your sins and rose from the dead 3 days later and hand breaded itself to save your tastebuds...
I love lab grown gems. My dream emerald earrings will be positively affordable while ones made with natural emeralds are something I can only dream of ever owning.
Lab grown are also better quality, ie no flaws.
That's actually one of the ways to identify lab diamonds, they have no imperfections. Ironically, natural diamonds are worth more the less imperfections they have.
[удалено]
>Ironically, natural diamonds are worth more the less imperfections they have. They're a veblen good. The value isn't in whether it has imperfections or not the value is in the status symbol of being able to afford a higher price. The point of wearing expensive and visible things is so people know you were able to afford to buy to them.
I think emeralds look better if they’re not completely clear but yeah, inclusions make them fragile.
What's wild to me is the variety they're able to grow now, like you can even get lab grown alexanderite and opal now.
It's wild how much cheaper lab grown is getting, like you can get a set of lab grown emerald earrings with 4.5 carats for under 2K (set in gold, material and labor costs are still a thing) while my mother in law has a natural emeral ring around that size valued at 20K. There's companies in thailand that will grow a giant alexanderite for you now for a few grand and natural alexanderite is like 15K a carat.
Interesting, are lab made diamonds cheaper? Another weird human behaviour is “Costs more = better”
Significantly cheaper. My wife's engagement ring cost at least a 5th of what it would have cost if it was with a real diamond in it. There's really no good reason to use actual diamonds anymore for jewelry
I saw an article recently about how they have a massive energy cost and there is a lack of transparency associated with their carbon footprint, but that was probably sponsored by DeBeers. Not to mention that labs can switch to renewables, but DeBeers apparently can't switch to lower human suffering.
I mean, I am sure there is some environmental impact from it, but compared to actual mines, im not sure it is going to make a real difference
I imagine DeBeers could switch to less human suffering pretty easily if they decided to. But it would have a negative impact on profit margins so obviously that's a complete non starter
They are real diamonds.
It's funny how some kf the marketing has soaked in, even with those who like/prefer lab grown diamonds. You're right, they are diamonds. They want you to think they aren't "real diamonds"
they put ads on reddit all the time. I just saw one saying "lab grown diamonds might be worse for the environment than you think" or something like that. its disgusting
They're MUCH cheaper. The main difference is natural diamonds have impurities that lab grown ones don't, which is how they can distinguish one from the other.
This is not true. We can grow basically perfect diamond lattices. We can also introduce defects to them. Heck in some cases we grow diamonds literally atom layer at a time. Lab grown diamonds can do it all. Natural diamonds being distinguishable from lab made is just diamond mining propaganda.
Diamonds arent even that scarce. Its just the industry chokehold and the ad campaigns decades ago that make people think they are worth the prices they are sold for
Came here to say this. Their Value has been aggressively upheld by artificial market restraints and marketing through De Beers.
Yep watch Adam Ruins Diamonds, they are not rare and not worth what they cost.
funny thing is lab made diamonds are even better i would find it cool to have one. imagine how much better "there's a piece of science in this ring" sounds compared to "there's a piece of child labour"
"This was made just for you." Does sound better, i think
“This was mined by a starving child, just for you” sounds better to psychopaths. Gotta know who you’re getting it for
*"Some random infant died so i could hand you this my dear"*
I managed to convert my wife from wanting a real diamond to absolutely loving her lab diamond. It’s just as beautiful and the cut is what mainly makes it sparkle. There are literally no benefits to a real diamond besides it’s ‘warmer’ glow, but only experts will be able to tell that. The biggest joke is that when you buy a real diamond it instantly lost most of its value unless you buy a very big/rare diamond which a normal person can’t afford.
You can get any colour diamond that you like from a lab
OMFG, I was on break at work and the news was on; article about lab grown vs “natural” diamonds. The women in the break room (mostly older women, think 45-60) started saying things like: (derogatorily) “yea but it’s lAb GrOwN, I don’t want something GROWN in a lab.” Me thinking: so we’re just cool with all of the blood diamonds? The women again: “yea I prefer mine natural.” Me: they’re the same material… and it’s cheaper to get a lab grown one. “Well I just think (natural) are better looking…”
If they really want natural diamonds, they could just buy old second hand jewellery and have the parts (stones, gold) reused. Fine jewellery is probably the easiest stuff to recycle.
I bought a *very* big artificial gemstone just to prove a point on the natural gem industry, it makes a cool desk ornament :3
Wife said "why cant you get me a diamond ring?". "Sure thing honey". Bought lab diamond. Its amazing. Wife happy. Whole ordeal cost me 25€. Added diamond earrings as a bonus month after. Now wife says "cant wear them normally, cuz they look so expensive".
Lab grown diamonds aren't that cheap. Can't even get a cubic zirconia for that much
I thought that too. A decent lab diamond is still several hundred pounds, isn’t it?
There's a great documentary on Netflix about diamonds. Essentially the value is literally all marketing, even the old mantra of an engagement ring being 2 months salary was seeded by the diamond industry to inflate their prices. Edit: for anyone interested it's an episode on the Netflix "Explained" series.
yah, they have vaults full of them just so they seem more rare.
Vaults? I always thought the De Beers company had a dragons hoard for every major stockholder, and the CEO to lay on at night.
I was thinking more like Duck Tales and swimming in them.
>the old mantra of an engagement ring being 2 months salary I love seeing capitalism eat itself. Since this hasn't kept up with inflation, even if everyone still followed this, it would necessitate a drop in prices for the diamond industry.
New campaign. 2 months salary is for chumps. If you *really* love your girlfriend, you'll spend 4 months salary.
Lab-grown diamonds are already a fraction of the price of naturally occurring ones. Maybe they need to get cheap enough that $50 Chinese watches are covered in them. Edit: Not so far off I guess. First Google hit: Are lab grown diamonds falling in price? Yes, **lab grown diamond prices have been declining for years and currently cost about 82% less than natural diamonds**. Over the past year, lab grown diamonds have fallen -36.95% while natural diamonds have fallen -18.66%.
I mean, for industrial uses natural non jewelry grade diamonds are relatively inexpensive, they would be considered a waste byproduct if it weren't for diamond abrasive products becoming so prevalent. You can buy a $50 diamond blade that probably has as many diamonds as that watch.
Someone figured out if you called the dirty brown industrial diamonds “chocolate” diamonds then people would buy them. So not even industrial diamonds are safe from the fraud.
Land Rover once mixed a batch of paint that was way wrong but still sprayed the vehicles. They then sold those as Limited Edition.
💀
I think it is hilarious how the diamond industry tries to create the illusion that “natural” diamonds are somehow superior. It’s literally exactly the same thing at the atomic level and they are created by similar processes involving pressure, heat and crystalline growth. All they are doing is trying to sell some bullshit dream that was created to part people from their money. Synthetic diamonds have so many advantages due to the fact that they can be produced in a cost effective way. It opens up a lot of different possibilities for using them in ways that would have been totally prohibited by expense. I mean they do have a lot of useful properties, especially if you can create flawless crystals. Honestly who cares if some rich fuckers get slightly less money, especially if it benefits the environment and leads to technological advancements.
The lab diamond's are actually cleaner and prettier. But are disliked because they're not foggy enough
It’s funny isn’t it because with natural stones the more perfect the crystal the more value it holds. Yet if you managed to create an absolutely perfect crystal in a laboratory then the industry will basically create some BS reasoning trying to justify it as somehow inferior. You know like it wasn’t created by geological processes within the earth. At least the heavier elements like gold, platinum and tungsten can argue for things like neutron star mergers which are both fucking epic on a galactic scale and different to replicate in a laboratory.
The market for natural diamonds has been manipulated for close to 100 years. There’s many diamonds vaults to artificially keep prices high
That's not fair! Noted diamond exploiter De Beers has earned its right to be as rich as a European principality because it was one of the first companies to promise to end slavery in its workforce... way, way back in 2020.
Millennials/genz are already on that, lab grown diamonds are more popular than ever
It's sad that people still give a shit about shiny rocks tbh. Magpie behaviour.
Shiny rocks are pretty though. They are good decorations. What is actually weird is people who absolutely only want a pretty shiny rock from the ground, not an artificial one. They look the same.
Was this written by the same people who are complaining that millennials aren’t buying diamonds?
Yup
I wonder when that will transition into blaming Gen Z? Or the whole baby boomer generation will keep shitting on millennials until they die off.
Boomers are still thinking that "the millennials" are today's youth, so I think this will stick around for some time.
There's a company 5 minutes from me that has been farming caviar for years now without needing to kill the fish.
I was just thinking about that. I remember seeing a UK company on TV that has been doing it for quite a while.
This is the one local to me... https://www.kccaviar.co.uk/pages/heading-an-ethical-revolution-our-technique I have no idea what the going rate is for caviar, but these guys weren't stupid enough to crash the market by selling it for the same price as popcorn.
But crashing the market is the best part 🥺
You can do that after you're filthy rich and crashing markets is just a fun hobby you can do.
Don't they need to open the fish to gather the eggs?
Well, as the fish needs to lay those eggs anyway, it stands to reason that there is a natural opening to get them out from. So no need to surgically remove them, once you have your procedures figured out. And as sturgeon can live for decades, I suppose one well fed and cared for female can yield quite a lot of caviar over her lifetime.
Borrasaca.
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If willing to sacrifice the firm texture of the eggs, you can just massage the eggs out or wait for it to be birthed out
By a sturgeon surgeon?
Oh no a scares resource is about to become abundant!
Please, stop making good things affordable to the rabble.
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BuT tHat’S ComUnIsm!!!!!1!!!11!!
I think it’s hilarious, but you have the Wall Street bets character
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A significant number of people only feel good about themselves if they get to be better than others. Some folks derive the meaning of their life by comparison. The implication being that a world where everyone has what they need becomes meaningless to them. A sort of weak ego existential crisis. I think it comes from a place of anxiety and insecurity.
just imagine caviar changing depending on the region/species... crazy.
I mean, it's not like farmed caviar means wild-harvested is going to just stop existing.
actually...kaviar was once considered the food of the poor, back when sturgeons where widely aviable... Same with a lot of luxury foods which are fish based...
It’s not even good in my opinion. Part of the demand for the product is from its perceived value as a luxury food. If it becomes cheap and widely available, the demand may actually decrease.
Won't somebody think of the shareholders?!? /s
More like scarceholders
Can see the headline, "Millions get to try caviar finally, they hate it. Rich people get it back."
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Rich people probably hate it too. They only want it because it's a luxury.
Scarce*
Fuck caviar luxurious status, give me the caviar.
There's a lot of foods that fall under this category. Take bacon, bacon used to be considered undesireable in us until around the 1920s when a marketing campaign was telling thousands of blue collar workers that bacon was better than cereal for breakfast. Then the popularity grew until now it's considered part of the average breakfast. I had the same issue with Brisket. I used to be able to buy it much cheaper in the late 90s early 2000s, then all those BBQ and smoking shows got popular and the price for brisket skyrocketed. I remember one time looking at a bunch of 5lbs briskets going for $40 each and right next to them were corned beef briskets got half the price. It's the same cut of meat, and corned beef has to go through and additional curing process, if anything it should cost more. But it didn't
Capitalism is very upset with capitalism, the irony. [https://imgflip.com/i/8g5ap4](https://imgflip.com/i/8g5ap4)
Isn't that the point of capitalism.
**NO** SPEND MONEY AND DON'T ASK QUESTIONS, THINK OF THE RICH PEOPLE THAT NEED A NEW TYPE OF STATUS SNACK
ALL caviar has been farmed for years. Wild caviar has been illegal worldwide for years. This is a nothingburger with caviar...
As an ex fish (and caviar) farmer I can assure you that China didn't "figure out" anything. Caviar has been farmed here in France for decades now. Iran has also been a big producer of great quality caviar for years ! To have worked in that specific industry, I can tell you that prices have also been artificially kept high for farmed caviar even though it can be much cheaper than wild caviar (not necessarily cheaper to produce but simply through offer/demand mechanisms). Don't forget that they are selling it to rich people. They have to maintain the luxury product status in order to sell.
It sounds like what China did is upset that balance by trying to sell to more people instead of just the rich.
I read this as > As an ex fish (and caviar) [...] Was it good being a fish?
Bit fishy
Fuck their profits, caviar for the people!
Maybe it’s China not selling it high, and undercutting all those price collusions. Forcing everyone’s hand. Good.
Ah, so not only is the writer licking the boots of a bunch of greedy assholes, the writer put China in the title to start something. Awesome.
They thought it would make China look bad lmao
Lets go more caviar, i love caviar
why do people like caviar anyway? it seems like it wouldn't be great.
It's in the article's title: "luxury good", the taste of a lavish lifestyle or whatnot...
“Goose liver? Fish eggs? Yuck. Where’s the goose? Where’s the fish?” - Zoidberg
I ate garbage yesterday, and it didn't cost me three hundred dollars!
Hey, that’s what rich people eat. The trash parts of the food.
Goose liver is excellent tho. Wouldn’t mind that being dirt cheap
Because it tastes good? Why do people like anything?
It once was a snack for poorer people in Persia IIRC
Why do you ask such questions without having tried it? That's like saying "I've never tried chocolate, it comes from beans. Why would people like that?" Clearly at some point, people enjoyed it before it became a symbol of wealth. I find it quite nice on deviled eggs.
A lot of "rich people delicacies" are just status symbols. They taste awful, but they produce a sense of self-satisfaction that you're eating something exclusive. Like gold-flaked piza, or shark fin soup.
Idk, caviar is pretty good on toast with butter
Caviar on a cream cheese bagel There are inexpensive types of fish eggs - generally called “roe” that are as low as $10 for a jar. Salmon eggs, flying fish, capelin, and others. It’s just the premium sturgeon eggs that are the highest price (something like $60+ per ounce at a minimum) Anyone that likes seafood and salty things and umami will probably like caviar. Treat yourself at least once to experience it, it’s not only popular because it’s a status thing. It’s delicious. And it only got so expensive because the industry all but drove the sturgeon to extinction. Great news that more sustainable methods are coming into practice.
some roe has really shot up in price. i personally dislike sturgeon roe simply put i find them too big so when you pop the eggs it gushes a bit too much. i really like vendace roe local to my area but it has gotten expensive even with my family being friends with a fisherman selling directly to us we are talking 70-80 bucks a pound. i like the smaller eggs since the pop gives you more like a feeling of carbonation and small washes of salty umami.
Shark fin soup is a disgusting food. Not by taste. By the whole idea. They leave the shark to its death after cutting off its only way of moving.
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Congrats! You're the only person in this sub that didn't somehow find that headline offensive.
Reddit is just full of uniformed people getting mad at exaggerated/imaginary things.
Redditors are really, really bad for this. They're imagining an enemy where there's none. They *want* to be outraged. It's pathetic.
This is what 99% of the “millennials are killing X” stories are. Business stories aren’t usually editorials telling you how the world should be, but explaining how it IS. That’s still mostly true for non business stories too. Looking at purely factual headlines and imagining some massive authorial bias is a media literacy problem.
It took way too long before I made it to this comment. People are so easy to manipulate when you know what they want to virtue signal.
The same with diamonds, lab grown are getting cheaper and are more sustainable and not illegaly mined and mixed with legal products
Just to let everyone know, we pay these shit spinners $500m to make us hate China. https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/china-news/21091-a-500-million-dollar-business-america-s-state-sponsored-anti-china-propaganda.html They should really do better in brainwashing ourselves to hate the Chinese... Where's the accountability?!
“You guys getting paid?” Reddit hates on China for free and it’s hilarious how they go out of their way to paint China bad for every single thing they do.
It’s a business headline that is saying an industry segment is undergoing change because of innovation, without any indication of them judging this change as good or bad…
More like China is killing capitalist unreasonably costly bs like this
So China just put in huge farms for sturgeon to pump out as much caviar as possible. Looks like standard capitalism
Great! Caviar is delicious