If future wife requires diamond, another stone is not going to fix root problem you have. Go with someone less materialistic.
Unless you’re willing to bundle everything beyond pure Buddha-tier equanimity as “character flaws.”
it’s unfair to draw the line between “useless thing you were socialized to spend money on” and “useless thing someone else was socialized to spend money on.”
Then there's consumer electronics manufacturing... ...or being a tourist to the Saudi Arabia/Turkey/Russia/UAE where modern-day slavery is taking place at scale.
Out of sight, out of mind.
We’re all deluding ourselves for the sake of sanity + having nice stuff.
So a shiny thing that’s less expensive actually doesn’t satisfy the same role.
A shiny thing that’s just as expensive but less valuable (ie lower $/karat, ie lab grown) is so large as to out itself as not-the-truly-ridiculous waste of money that a real diamond is supposed to be for its signaling value.
You can't fix the whole world with personal choices, like an eyedropper against the ocean, but you can still opt out of the worst excesses without having to compromise every modern convenience.
"Failure to see reason" is probably the next biggest red-flag/dealbreaker for me.
I'm going to die alone.
I don't really think there's an unbiased way to ask. 'Lab-grown or natural' makes the latter sound more 'real' and better. 'Ethical or blood sweat and tears' is obviously out. 'Lab-grown and technically superior for the same money, or natural and more flawed' is about the best I can come up with, but the former is just objectively the correct answer isn't it? I don't see how anyone could understand the question and answer the latter. There just isn't a reason to prefer natural, all else being equal, for an item of personal jewellery that you're going to wear?