It seemed like you were proposing to the question asker to not use rings without proposing a reason. And, diamonds hold no significance for me. I am not aware of any tradition involving them beyond the modern expectation, which seems to be arbitrary.

I value traditions that are good. I think marriage is good. I think performing private and public acts demonstrating love and commitment is good. That symbols and oaths hold powerful places in our mind. A wedding ring is such a thing.

I think participating in traditions helps to preserve them, our culture, and our history. It links us to our past and honors those who came before us. It binds a people together. That culture can also add purpose to and enrich everyday acts.

I find it hard to see much similarity between preserving a valued and meaingful tradition chosen by free will by an individual out of love and selflessness, and preserving an imposed govt convention that is not individually chosen and is used by govt to steal from their citizenry and to enrich politicians and their cronies.

Tradition and arbitrary convention are not the same.

To illustrate, I don't conflate a meaninful act of love with driving my usual route to work. Tradition and culture are not just what we have always done. There is a meaningful why.

If govt money was a good thing and there wasn't a better option, which at one point was probably true, I think it would be worth preserving. People value good tools. But, it has become a bad tool used against us. The concept of money is importent to me, as a necessity of free trade, not the form of the money. This paragraph is getting a little into the weeds, so I'll move on.

Do you see any importance to culture? You post about traditional Chinese food and medicine. What draws you to them? Why participate in the tradition? They could easily be replaced by western alternatives.

I would rather teach my child to make a dish from my grandmother's recipe book, as her mom did for her, for my family to eat, than have us all eat a nutricianally-equivalent tablet made in an industrial factory. The former has a story. It binds us together. The later is hollow. We're not going sit around the table and share stories about grandma while we swallow our tablet. It robs us of some part of the human experience.

Let me know on the question of culture, traditional food, and medicine. I'm genuinely interested.

Good talks. Sleepy time.