the diamond hoax

Going through junk emails brings to mind something that amazes me. Somehow over however many years, the diamond industry has pulled off one of the greatest marketing feats in world history. Its pitchers have managed to get huge numbers of people to assign ridiculous worth to simple rocks that are easily duplicated almost to a tee. Moreover, they have managed to convince people that spending tons of money on said rocks is necessary and shows superior devotion to another person. I mean...I'm looking for words to keep this diatribe going but I simply can't grasp this level of stupidity. It is beyond reason or rational thought.

This reminds me of the whole fashion game. One t-shirt can sell for 10x the price of another because it's emblazoned with a certain company logo. A watch can sell for 235x that of an equivalent model because 1% of the population might realize on sight that the owner must have overspent absurdly for it. That is a world of thought that I simply do not understand and cannot comprehend. Some levels of idiocy don't even register enough substance to begin to lend themselves to thoughtful critique.