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Bottom falls out on commodity made artifically rare through imperailism and corruption. Is this the part where I’m supposed to feel bad for De Beers?
To be fair, diamonds are indeed rare on earth. But what made diamond price come crashing is because we now managed to synthesise the diamonds. These “fake” diamonds flooded the market. This is good news so that we don’t have to rely on exploitative extraction of the mineral.
Also because newer generations just aren’t sold on diamonds being a luxury item anymore. Your average Joe just isn’t paying their rent or more on a diamond engagement/wedding ring like they used to because, well, that’s their rent payment or mortgage for something that’s gonna lose value the second they walk out of the store.
They’re not especially rare, not even gem-quality ones. For several generations, almost every married woman in a western country had a diamond on her finger of some size. They found plenty of them to serve that market. The mines created artificial scarcity by colluding together.
If lab grown had never happened, diamond mines might not have been able to serve industrial customers. Industrial customers don’t care how it looks as long as it cuts, and so lab grown has been good enough for decades. Thus, you can get a two-pack 4.5 inch diamond angle grinder wheel at Home Depot for around twenty bucks.
The free market manages to solve a problem.
I wonder how much money it’s going to cost the diamond lobby to un-solve it.
Diamond coin! With a hologram of Trump doing Queen Victoria
Finally, rocks might be worth what rocks are worth.
I’d like to see new uses for diamonds that take advantage of their material properties. For example, the thermal conductivity of diamonds is very high.
and their hardness makes them useful in all saw-blades or drill-bits
Diamond thermal paste is out there. It’s okay, but like most thermal paste (besides liquid metal, which has its own issues), it doesn’t give extraordinary results over anything else. People tend to really overthink thermal paste; it’s going to give you maybe 4 extra degrees C, and that’s already pushing it.
Graphene is an even better thermal conductor, and heat pipes are tons better than either. There’s some work out there on enhancing heat pipes with graphene.
Industrial diamonds have always been on the cheap and that industry is far removed from the jewelry/gem industry, in fact a large majority of diamonds that are mined aren’t gem grade, they’re industrial grade. It’s been growing and advancing despite the jewelry/gem market starting to fall.
I’d buy more diamonds, but I spent all my money on avocado toast.
All essentials are going up but at least some useless luxury items are coming down.
Now this is my kind of uplifting news!
Prices are so bad that De Beers is for sale?! Wild.
Prices are so bad that De Beers is for sale?!
BHP’s bid for Anglo American, which owns De Beers, is playing a role too.
Artificially expensive shiny rocks less valuable than advertised.
Fun fact, reputable pawn shops don’t pay for gemstones because they’re effectively worthless. They only pay for previous metals. If you sell a wedding ring they’ll only pay you what the metals are worth.
Not really. They will pay you as little as they can get away with. Often that’s the value of the metals.
Precious metals*
Lol
Diamonds are worthless outside of industrial uses.
The same can be said for precious metals as well except precious metals can’t be manufactured. Their natural scarcity gives them some value beyond their utility.
Diamonds however are not scarce.
I disagree. They ARE pretty. Just not as pretty as a rose or a sunset and yeah best used as industrial tooling.
I would rate them above roses personally. Below a good sunset though; nearly nothing manmade beats those
Pedantry because funny: Diamonds and Roses aren’t man made either. On a more serious note, some things aren’t beautiful because they last but because they are fleeting.
Any rose you buy at a florist or other store is the product of centuries of selective breeding by horticulturists. So they are, in that sense, man-made. And now they’re getting into genetic modification.
In fact, if you bought someone a dozen wild roses, they might be disappointed.
Really, virtually anything plant-related you can buy in a store is a human creation at least in part. We don’t think of flowers we tend to grow and buy as domesticated, but they are.
Ain’t that the truth
Lots of diamonds are man made, and most people can’t tell them apart from natural diamonds, especially without a microscope.
Good sunsets are frequently man-made too, the most beautiful red glowing ones own their look to dust - air pollution.
Fuck De Beers.
Lab-grown rocks
When I was getting married a few years ago, I remember thinking fuck real diamonds lab-grown are literally the same thing. I remember getting some push back from some weirdos about how “real” diamonds are some how better or how people will think I’m a cheapskate or how people will feel bad for my wife…
Well, fast forward a few years and literally nobody cares, thinks about, or has said anything negative about my wife’s ring. We are both 1000000% happy and satisfied with the decision to buy lab grown.
We said fuck diamonds entirely, even lab grown, and even had to go out of our way to find something that didnt have diamonds on it somehow
Fucking noice, dude. 👏 Honestly, yeah, why even diamonds. They brainwashed us good.
Mostly because they dont get scratched. Theyre pretty neat. Not blood diamonds though, those are a crime against humanity.
Women love diamonds for their wide range of industrial applications.
Like making pickaxes and mining obsidian?
I got us bare tungsten carbide bands. If “Diamonds are forever”, then tungsten carbide is 9.5/10ths of forever, and it’s the whole band instead of just a small easily-detachable part of it. More practically, it won’t get beat to hell like the white gold ring from my first marriage. Plus, if I ever need a really strong connector for jury-rigging something, I’m now carrying one with me at all times!
Tc won’t scratch, but it is brittle though.
So are diamonds, but hey - don’t pollute my symbol with your facts! As far as romance is concerned, hardness == durability, end of story :P
We have tattoos.
When it’s time for children I recommend lab grown as well!
fuck children too
username checks out.
Username checks out
please don’t
Why don’t you have a seat right over here.
Phrasing!
I gave my wife an engagement ring with natural diamonds, but it belonged to my great-grandmother who died in the 1940s, so I didn’t feel that there was an ethical issue.
I’ve unfortunately lost my wedding ring in palladium. My wife is planning to offer me a new one but this time I want a steel ring made by a local jeweler.
Not because it is cheaper but because I am using my money in the right place.
Precious metal/stones is a social flex saying “Look ! I can afford the labor of X African slaves that have worked in the mine to extract this mineral” (plus the ecological impact of mining)
I’d rather spend money to buy the labor of a local artisan than buy African slave labor through a myriad of intermediaries
We decided on some cheap silver rings. We really didn’t want to carry around something extremely valuable everywhere. Go swimming and lose 5000€ in the lake? Do some yard work and lose your diamond ring there? Getting mugged and the robber is getting something really expensive? No, thank you.
Expensive wedding rings & jewelery did make sense in the past when women were not allowed their own money, bank accounts etc. as a way to escape an abusive husband. Pawn your expensive wedding ring, get cash for the getaway. But we’re not living in the 50s, my wife has her own bank account, is earning her own money, so no need for something like that.
We did the same. Some silver bands from a local artist.
Paid off when one was lost. The artist was still available for a new order.
Geoffrey Farrow at Raphael, a jeweller on the other side of the street, can only just bring himself to sell lab-grown diamonds. “They are synthetic,” he said. “Lab-grown sounds exotic, but it’s created – they make it by the buckets. There’s no history to it. The price is going to go down further and further.”
I find that a very interesting perspective. I prefer the idea of something we made with human ingenuity as opposed to some thing you dug out of the dirt, probably with a shoddily-hidden special history of slavery and tears, and before that, just sitting in the ground like a bunch of other boring things. The history of a lab-grown is entirely mine and my hypothetical partner’s to create.
If I was a diamond person anyways. I’d be more worried about losing the expensive ring somehow and worrying over it, and would much rather buy the cheapest thing that can still socially function as “look, I am married, don’t hit on me!” without having to wear some ugly shirt that says that. Ideally both me and my hypothetical partner would just forgo expensive rings (and don’t get me wrong, I’m adamantly not a T-shirt and jeans person, I like to dress up, I have just never been a ring person) and spend it on something else we would both like.
For those who do not share my opinions on wedding rings, which is valid, I am also glad to hear lab-grown prices are down so people can still get that ring they love without breaking the bank and without supporting De Beers.
While violence behind diamond mines is real and should never be forgotten, don’t be obtuse. It’s not some thing you pulled from dirt.
It’s still beautiful. It’s still a gem. It’s still something that naturally formed over millions of years in the crucible of fire and pressure beneath our crust. That history is astounding and something people can marvel at.
Don’t begrudge Geoffrey Farrow his wonder at the world around him.
P.s. Fuck De Beers. Fuck the false scarcity. Fuck the slavery and violence and exploitation of nations the diamond trade relies on.
I suppose I’m probably the most anti-nature environmentalist. Protect this because we need it to live, and animals need it to live. But I really personally hate nature, it doesn’t bring me pleasure. I have been to some of the wonders of the world and was not floored, breath not taken away. “Checks out, let’s move on.” (Why’d I go to see it then? Someone else with me wanted to see it :P I’m a lot more interested in history that directly involves humans or something once living. For me, dinosaurs and artifacts of early human civilization are cool, gems are not.) I don’t marvel at it, and any reason to dismiss something made with cruelty is something I’ll eagerly jump on, even if it’s definitely not a popular perspective. To me it really is an overvalued thing you pulled out of the dirt, no matter the facts behind how it formed inside the dirt.
Disclaimer: I don’t say this to be contrarian, I am really not the type. Popular ≠ bad and I’m not some special unique snowflake, I just have some quirks where I have a different opinion, as does everyone else! I don’t like nature, others don’t like chocolate. I think most people have at least one unpopular preference/dislike, this is mine.
Good. Fuck rich people.
Come crashing down
Crashing down
I wish.
