I would much rather sleep through June or July.

Baby steps. Gotta start somewhere.

priceless jewels

It's ocean mucus kidney stones. Proverbial gunk that builds up in the throat of a sea creature.

Like diamonds, I do not understand human fascination beyond "ooh shiny"

Isn't that just depression?

With enough phone use you can get that.

It seems to me humans have two states in this regard.

"Uuuh, shiny!"

Derived from our desire for beauty.

"Uuuh, rare!"

Derived from our desire for social prestige and financial contentment.

There might as well be a third when something looks useful (as a toy or otherwise useful tool), but I don't think that fits here.

Adding to what that other person said, not all pearls are perfectly round, and even rarer are black pearls. Because of that, they can be used as a symbol of status. Its a bit more interesting in case of diamonds (and im a bit more sure in what I know, but its a similar process), because they have multiple fascinating uses (diamond saws, pretty sure drill heads too, lasers), but the status aspect really dominates what really makes them expensive. There are a lot of diamonds out there, but jewelry corporations want you to care only about the natural ones with little imperfections (synthetic diamonds have a lot less imperfections, but its harder to control the supply of those, so you are told they suck). So a decent part of it is corporations upholding either tradition or old marketing, whichever you prefer and like in many cases, the intuitive answer is "look pretty" but the real one is politics

1. “Good” ones are rare.
2. They are pretty.

Humans just love pretty things. It’s famously one the main things that moves people.

It's shiny and has lootcrate mechanics

Diamonds have their use as tool heads

Like diamonds, I do not understand human fascination beyond "ooh shiny"

fantasic posing greed then we should

feed our jewelry to the sea

for diamonds do appear to be

just like broken glass to me

Industrial diamonds are awesome. Who needs fancy polished and faceted gemstones anyway?

But bills and society

Gift giving, giving rare and/or useful things was a good way to build relationships in a pre-agricultural world, a world where relationships especially between groups was even more crucial than today

When my gall bladder was removed, I got to keep my stones as a souvenir

One of the nurses suggested making a necklace out of them

bears cant even compare to animals that can hibernate, bears actually dont hibernate. you cant wake up a hibernating animal like you can a bear.

whether it's accurate or not damn I wish I could hibernate... but through summer instead. qol improvement would be amazing