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Comment by stephengillie | Hacker News Reader

So this becomes a social competition to see who can waste the most resources?

It sounds like it has barbaric roots -- who can provide the most food / kill the biggest animal / lift the heaviest rock / travel the fastest / find the rarest material / pay someone else the most money to do so.

You'll never find an end to the people who are willing to provide the same product for a higher price.

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> So this becomes a social competition to see who can waste the most resources?

Slightly more subtle than that: Waste the resources without incurring financial hardship. That last part is important.

> It sounds like it has barbaric roots

Not unlike the mating ritual itself.

> You'll never find an end to the people who are willing to provide the same product for a higher price.

Again, it's more subtle: The social signal includes being able to discern and choose well among the competing alternatives.

De Beers enjoyed a monopoly on the market for a long time, so the prices were pretty much standardized across the entire marketplace. Yes, you could obviously find someone willing to sell you diamonds for more than what De Beers charged, but nobody would believe that you willingly paid more than "market rate". "Market rate" in this context refers to De Beers' monopolistic pricing, not actual market rate, which is actually peanuts because diamonds are in fact very common.

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