Why do people worry about how big their diamonds are when there are starving people in the world?

Question

This baffles me.

Answer 1

i agree with you!! when my husband proposed to me, i told him that i didn't want any ring whatsoever. we just took the $$ that we both would have spent on the whole wedding and rings and everything and donated it. some to the local children's hospital and some to help with AIDS in Africa

Answer 2

Why does this baffle You? I mean really, how many people do you know that are starving? Listen, I have people right here in my community who have no heat and no food...its cold in Michigan in December. But, who am I to say that people who have money have no right to be happy about their good fortune. I work every day and still struggle with paying my bills and providing for my family. But who am I to say that the rich woman in the next neighborhood has no right to feel grateful for what she has. For some people, bigger is better and more is the best. Listen, in this world some people have a lot and some have very little...If you want to help those who have little or none then do so. But to feel malice toward the ones who have a lot is unfair to them. If we want to be fair to all then we have to stop judging any one.

Answer 3

Not everyone does, I didn't. What matters more is the circle, which represents unity and bonding together as one. ♥ The diamond has not mattered to me ever in my relationship. It comes from within your soul.
There is more than just diamonds though when it comes to people starving, greed in general is slowly creeping in consuming most of the world. What you do and I do, what those who care do is the focus.
People that do things with out any thought need to come to the realization on their own, and their is still hope.

Answer 4

Is there a reason you believe that worrying about one thing means that they don't care about the other?

Granted, it will vary from person to person, but that lady with the big diamond may have sent several thousand dollars to a charity of her choosing. It may have been for hunger, or to fight AIDS or some other disease, but I wouldn't automatically rule her out simply because she is wearing a huge rock.

Bill and Melinda Gates have a HUGE charity fund. You know she has some diamonds, but that doesn't mean she has no heart,

Answer 5

People, for the most part, are really only concerned with their immediate world. For a lot of people it's too "painful" to think about people starving or needing shelter, so they just don't. Some don't care. However, I still believe it has more to do with people neglecting to look outside of their personal worlds. It's too bad :(

Answer 6

Me too. Send those people to the areas where there are starving people, and they might worry more. But ignorance and a choice to not do or worry anything about it wins for most.

Answer 7

why do you worry about people starving in the world when there are big diamonds to get?

Answer 8

Society is designed so that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. If the world tried to help poor people, there would be no more rich people, and rich people don't want that.

Answer 9

I am afraid the masses are covinced by the merchants that to be loved and have status, they must posses diamonds. I'm with you, we need to give up the worthless glass and embrace humanity.

Answer 10

Because diamonds make the world better...forget the starving people, they're dying, they don't need diamonds...

Answer 11

Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really Want to Give You One (2/14/02)
By Liz Stanton, CPE Staff Economist

1. You've Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond
The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.

2. Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value
The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.

3. Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value
Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers’ advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original "value."

4. Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS
Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.

5. Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats
Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.

6. Diamond Mine-Owners Violate Indigenous People's Rights
Diamond mines in Australia, Canada, India and many countries in Africa are situated on lands traditionally associated with indigenous peoples. Many of these communities have been displaced, while others remain, often at great cost to their health, livelihoods and traditional cultures.

7. Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds
More than one-half of the world's diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.

8. Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa
There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers.

9. Diamond Wars are Fought Using Child Warriors
Many diamond producing governments and rebel forces use children as soldiers, laborers in military camps, and sex slaves. Child soldiers are given drugs to overcome their fear and reluctance to participate in atrocities.

10. Small Arms Trade is Intimately Related to Diamond Smuggling
Illicit diamonds inflame the clandestine trade of small arms. There are 500 million small arms in the world today which are used to kill 500,000 people annually, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants.