29 ms·

Shaking Up the Diamond Industry

188 points by EwanToo 7y ago

demosito666 7y ago
The right way to shake this industry would be to obliterate it completely. Finding another useless piece of glass and selling it for $$$ is not shaking anything.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Society would have to work to convince people that status symbols are not worth pursuing. Unfortunately, based on my experience of how people’s brains work, that is quite an uphill battle.
  - zhte415 7y ago
    > Society would have to work to convince people that status symbols are not worth pursuing. On this note, a book recommendation: The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. Thorsten Veblen, 1899. More relevant now than ever. From Wikipedia, a short summary: > a treatise on economics and a detailed, social critique of conspicuous consumption, as a function of social class and of consumerism, derived from the social stratification of people and the division of labour, which are social institutions of the feudal period that have continued to the modern era. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Clas... I believe he coined the phrase Conspicuous Consumption.
  - paganel 7y ago
    People over here in Europe are not that hung up on diamonds. Not saying we don’t care about status symbols, because we most certainly do, just wanted to point out that it’s definetely doable to “eliminate” diamonds from the “status showing” game.
  - bonoboTP 7y ago
    While status symbols exist everywhere, this specific obsessing over diamond rings and being "shamed" if you don't get one is pretty US-specific. In Hungary, for example, many couples just get simple, golden rings without any gemstone. A wedding ring traditionally isn't supposed to be flashy here.
- mhb 7y ago
  Maybe replace it with something that also consumes energy and produces nothing of real value. Maybe call it cryptocurrency.
  - CrazyStat 7y ago
    So the new engagement ring diamond will be a piece of glass with a bitcoin wallet containing 1+ BTC microetched on it?
  - oiasdjfoiasd 7y ago
    ^ guy who missed the boat.
rcarmo 7y ago
My father was a diamond cutter (one of the folk who designed the modern “Portuguese cut” of the 70s) and he went through the evolution of diamond cutting from abrasion with copper disks (for cutting windows and facets) to laser cuts. I distinctly remember going into the (then state-owned) workshops as a kid and watching the cutters at work with their loupes, and how they kept tabs on stones by checking in and out of the vaults little envelopes annotated with each step of the process - it was true craftsmanship. Biggest stone I “saw” (they did resin molds of the large ones for senior cutters to measure and mark the places for clamping and cutting, and my father would bring some models home to study and review other cutters’ suggestions) was about 2x2x3cm, and IIRC it was cut down into many smaller ones due to impurities (you’d cut a window to peer in, assess where the impurities were and then plan the cuts to excise them or avoid including them into the finished cut). The techniques are sure to be vastly different today, but the detachment with which he viewed his work was rather fun: they were intricate puzzles to maximize yield during the rough cut phase and reflectiveness during the shaping phase - they did the math by hand for the facet sizes and angles, and it took years to figure out the best ways to do some of the shaping in a reproducible fashion (that was his key achievement). And all that time, they were “just pretty rocks”. He was very nonchalant about it, and never considered them of much value. DeBeers tried to hire him and he pretty much said he was done with the hype (rather amusing considering I’m about his age at the time and also fed up with our industry hype). (Also, if you read Michael Crichton’s “Congo”, he got the diamond color names wrong)
- rcarmo 7y ago
  Also, a note on the humanitarian side of things, but not directly related to mining: When the Portuguese colonies seceded in the 70s, many people returned or emigrated to Portugal with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and "diamonds" they had exchanged their farms and real estate for. I remember a few dinner conversations about how a few of them came to my father to assess the value of those stones, and most were chunks of quartz or other worthless crystals. I think some of those conversations were really tough, and one of the reasons he disconnected from work as much as he could (his hobby was electronics, and one of the reasons I got into computers was that he brought a Sinclair ZX81 from London after years of putting together various kits, including a HeathKit oscilloscope). So, in a way, diamonds are the reason I do what I do these days.
lordnacho 7y ago
I still wish I'd discovered Moissanite before I got married. The rock would have been multiples larger and I'd have the satisfaction of not contributing to a monopolistic and exploitative industry.
- irishcoffee 7y ago
  I was fortunate enough to discover moissanite. Wife loves it, and the price was somewhere in the ballpark of 90-95% cheaper than an equivalent size diamond. The added benefit is, everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them...
  - matwood 7y ago
    > everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them It also avoids conversations that have few good outcomes. Tell someone who spent $$$$ on a diamond that you think diamonds are a waste of money or a humanitarian disaster, and it's not a great way to start a conversation. There are also other colored stones that I think are nicer looking than diamonds, but moissanite provides a nice way to stay within cultural norms without necessarily[1] contributing to the problem. [1] Obviously actively fighting against the whole diamond industry is better, but we all have to pick our battles.
    - galangalalgol 7y ago
      Synthetic diamond will eventually become so easy the industry won't be able to supress it anymore. The collapse will be interesting, in the bloddy sense of the term I suspect.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - bluedevil2k 7y ago
        Synthetic diamonds are not easy to produce and they take time and energy (literally). The only reason synthetics are made is because the price of real diamonds help prop up the price of artificial ones. If the market collapses, as you predict, than artificial diamonds don’t become economical to create any more. My prediction: new mines will continue to be found and real diamonds will have the same market hold they have now in 20 years.
dannyw 7y ago
We should crowdfund a PR campaign that diamonds are synonyms for death and exploitation, and it’s more humane for “any gem but a diamond”. A $10 million campaign or so, targeting youth especially, can have tremendous impacts on future generations.
- jatgoodwin 7y ago
  Except the diamonds discussed in the article are from Botswana, where the article states "the firm paid the Botswanan government eighty-five million dollars in taxes, and nearly thirty million in royalties, on profits of about a hundred and eighty-five million." Seems pretty good deal for the Botswanans.
  - arczyx 7y ago
    To be fair, paying the government in taxes and royalty does not mean that the diamond is not obtained through exploitation of the local population while the corrupt officials took the money (this sometimes happened in my country). I don't really know about Botswana though, if those money actually go to the Botswanans then good for them.
    - grecy 7y ago
      > I don't really know about Botswana though, if those money actually go to the Botswanans then good for them. Botswana is probably the best run and least corrupt country in Southern Africa (maybe all of Africa). They've never had a war of any kind, are incredibly friendly to everyone regardless of skin color, etc. etc. They are famous for tricking the British into giving them mineral rights before they were granted independence, and have used that money wisely the benefit the local people. Huge success story, and fantastic country.
      - tacheiordache 7y ago
        We, Romanians are very emotionally attached to Botswana’s currency. It means in Romanian, the most important thing men pride themselves with.
ggm 7y ago
E.J. Epstein's "the death of the diamond" was a great read. But, since 1984 is long behind us, kind of wrong. I had no idea how much bort the world consumes. Industrial diamonds are .. industrial. Hard to feel romantic about drill bits and cutting saws. Also the simplicity of the financials to lend liz Taylor the dough to buy the diamond .. Who actually bought it if the money came from the shop?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pmart123 7y ago
  Well, push the commodity price to the limit. LVMH designing purses with diamond studs? Bedazzled dresses? Jewelry shifting more to intricate designs, brand increasing in importance, and more use of gold or platinum? If a girl in Iowa can easily get a 3 carat diamond ring, what will the girl in New York now want?
jake-low 7y ago
Folks who enjoyed this article may also be interested in this one [0] from The Atlantic, published in 1982, which chronicles the rise of the diamond industry during the 20th century. [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...
- dang 7y ago
  Discussed 5 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20818618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20818618 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4535611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4535611 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1405698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1405698 Also 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1110283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1110283 Those are the big threads. Lots of little ones too: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=tried%20sell%20diamond&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... The author showed up here once: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5414757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5414757
pacamara619 7y ago
Is it possible to artificially create diamonds so that they have defects which make them slightly blue in colour?
- iamgopal 7y ago
  You mean boron impurities ?
- Aunche 7y ago
  Yeah. You can get artificial diamonds of pretty much every color. They aren't super popular though because everyone will assume that the diamond is artificial or even fake because natural blue diamonds cost $1 million.
anonu 7y ago
Really cool history. Thanks for sharing this. I can imagine if you "know the truth" about the business you're in you might want to get out. I felt like that about certain financial jobs I've had in the past. The actual work felt like it provided no real value to society, but the intellectual challenges were what kept me there.
- andrepd 7y ago
  >The actual work felt like it provided no real value to society A sign of a broken system that needs urgent repair. Most financial jobs, hft, adtech jobs... We have our best minds working on things that do not provide any useful value to society. This is not a good state of affairs.
  - brandnewlow 7y ago
    I can’t speak to finance but I get confused when people bash advertising in broad strokes. People running businesses need ways to exchange money for new customers. That’s advertising. Making that more efficient might surely be annoying but a complete waste of time?
    - kijin 7y ago
      The parent said adtech, not advertising. What we call adtech today is advertising plus tracking. The tracking part is what most people seem to have a problem with.
      - BlueTemplar 7y ago
        Post-war advertising isn't much better itself, being based to make people to want things they might not even need...
        kijin 7y ago
        Yep, the marketing for diamonds was a prime example of that. But at least De Beers didn't try to track individual brides and grooms and show them different diamonds based on what they were talking about on the phone. Maybe they do now.
jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
What do you do with your diamonds? Are they supposed to have nice piezoelectric properties or something?
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Well, it's one of the hardest known materials...
  - jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
    I found an excerpt from geology.com about uses for lab-grown diamonds: "wear-resistant bearings, heat sinks for computer processors, and high-temperature windows."
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      > heat sinks Wow, I forgot about that - looks like that you can buy one of the best thermal pastes out there for VERY reasonable prices... and it's 90%+ diamond !!
bruceb 7y ago
One way to shake up the industry is just not to buy diamond wedding rings. That simple. Big rocks on a finger make the person seem needy and insecure. Like I need this big flashy thing is proof of my worth.
- jtms 7y ago
  Anecdotally, many younger couples I know are going with lab made stones or gemstones other than diamonds.
  - greenonions 7y ago
    I bought my wife a simple gold band. We were students. I told her how Americans spend so much money on diamonds and she was like, "that's stupid, you could go on such a good vacation and have nice food."
devin 7y ago
Fantastic article. Before you make a comment about the diamond industry, read the whole thing. I’ve had the same view, but this article moved me. Also, the audio version is wonderfully read. Recommended.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  As always, beware that the article might be biased. I don't think it is too tinfoil to suspect that the diamond industry does good PR.
olliswe 7y ago
I currently live in Sierra Leone working as a software dev, and just came back from an evening jog around the largest diamond mine in West Africa. It's crazy how much pain an misery diamonds have caused to this country. The citizens here in Koidu don't get any of the income of the diamonds, and live it extreme poverty... Meanwhile the guys from De Beers are living bougie lives in their maximum security compounds, with a pool, western supermarket and bar.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  > The citizens here in Koidu don't get any of the income of the diamonds. Surely the issue of where and how minimg licences and sales revenue is distributed in SL, is something the folk of Koidu should take up with their government. As with any company anyehere, De Beers pays the share they are obliged to to the authorities.
  - grecy 7y ago
    > As with any company anyehere, De Beers pays the share they are obliged to to the authorities BP and Facebook aren't paying their share of taxes in the USA, do you think De Beers is going to do so in Sierra Leone? The only difference is there are just enough tax dollars in the US to make life tolerable for the masses - cheap beer & cigarettes, sports on TV and elementary education.
    - pinkfoot 7y ago
      BP and Facebook aren't paying their share of taxes in the USA, do you think De Beers is going to do so in Sierra Leone? Do you have any evidence that thy aren't? Or do you just make things up?
      - grecy 7y ago
        https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-biggest-companies-paid-little-to-no-federal-income-tax-last-year/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-big... BP Actually get tax credits, as does Amazon. So they pay negative taxes.
The_mboga_real 7y ago
Now do one about all the really poor diamond hunters, you fag
berlin1212 7y ago
Human rights violations - nobody wants to fix it!
Animats 7y ago
It's hard to take diamonds seriously any more. This is a diamond factory in China.[1] That's the "high pressure high temperature" process, a huge room of very strongly built presses. There's also the "controlled vapor deposition" process. Alibaba has huge lots of diamonds produced that way. Those are real diamonds. Mostly. You may get cubic zirconia. Cubic zirconia is so cheap that those stones come in plastic bags and are sold in lots of 1000. Distinguishing CVD diamonds from natural diamonds is getting harder each year. The diamond industry treats flawless, clear diamonds as the ideal, and that's what CVD produces best - perfect crystals with only carbon. It's based on a process from semiconductor manufacturing. Distinguishing good CVD diamonds from natural now requires rather elaborate equipment. [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-manufacturer-Diamond-Cubic-Press-with_62019698980.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-manufacturer-Di...
- basch 7y ago
  The only real benefit to distinguishing is to pay more for the same thing. A person asking to prove something is "real" is literally volunteering to overpay. Imagine having two ot of the otherwise same thing in front of you but one comes with an optional marketing hype tax.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The diamond industry treats flawless, clear diamonds as the ideal Well, for approximately flawless, clear diamonds, yes, actually flawless, clear diamonds are the ideal. But, e.g., blue diamonds are, like, vastly preferred by the market over clear ones, with a couple orders of magnitude price premium, iirc.
brian-armstrong 7y ago
This article is absolutely an advertisement for the subject company. It is an interesting article but when reading it please keep in mind that it is not objective about its subject and is being used to promote a pro-diamond agenda.

188 points by EwanToo 7y ago

The right way to shake this industry would be to obliterate it completely. Finding another useless piece of glass and selling it for $$$ is not shaking anything.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Society would have to work to convince people that status symbols are not worth pursuing. Unfortunately, based on my experience of how people’s brains work, that is quite an uphill battle.
- zhte415 7y ago
  > Society would have to work to convince people that status symbols are not worth pursuing. On this note, a book recommendation: The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. Thorsten Veblen, 1899. More relevant now than ever. From Wikipedia, a short summary: > a treatise on economics and a detailed, social critique of conspicuous consumption, as a function of social class and of consumerism, derived from the social stratification of people and the division of labour, which are social institutions of the feudal period that have continued to the modern era. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Clas... I believe he coined the phrase Conspicuous Consumption.
- paganel 7y ago
  People over here in Europe are not that hung up on diamonds. Not saying we don’t care about status symbols, because we most certainly do, just wanted to point out that it’s definetely doable to “eliminate” diamonds from the “status showing” game.
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  While status symbols exist everywhere, this specific obsessing over diamond rings and being "shamed" if you don't get one is pretty US-specific. In Hungary, for example, many couples just get simple, golden rings without any gemstone. A wedding ring traditionally isn't supposed to be flashy here.
mhb 7y ago
Maybe replace it with something that also consumes energy and produces nothing of real value. Maybe call it cryptocurrency.
- CrazyStat 7y ago
  So the new engagement ring diamond will be a piece of glass with a bitcoin wallet containing 1+ BTC microetched on it?
- oiasdjfoiasd 7y ago
  ^ guy who missed the boat.

rcarmo 7y ago

My father was a diamond cutter (one of the folk who designed the modern “Portuguese cut” of the 70s) and he went through the evolution of diamond cutting from abrasion with copper disks (for cutting windows and facets) to laser cuts. I distinctly remember going into the (then state-owned) workshops as a kid and watching the cutters at work with their loupes, and how they kept tabs on stones by checking in and out of the vaults little envelopes annotated with each step of the process - it was true craftsmanship. Biggest stone I “saw” (they did resin molds of the large ones for senior cutters to measure and mark the places for clamping and cutting, and my father would bring some models home to study and review other cutters’ suggestions) was about 2x2x3cm, and IIRC it was cut down into many smaller ones due to impurities (you’d cut a window to peer in, assess where the impurities were and then plan the cuts to excise them or avoid including them into the finished cut). The techniques are sure to be vastly different today, but the detachment with which he viewed his work was rather fun: they were intricate puzzles to maximize yield during the rough cut phase and reflectiveness during the shaping phase - they did the math by hand for the facet sizes and angles, and it took years to figure out the best ways to do some of the shaping in a reproducible fashion (that was his key achievement). And all that time, they were “just pretty rocks”. He was very nonchalant about it, and never considered them of much value. DeBeers tried to hire him and he pretty much said he was done with the hype (rather amusing considering I’m about his age at the time and also fed up with our industry hype). (Also, if you read Michael Crichton’s “Congo”, he got the diamond color names wrong)

rcarmo 7y ago
Also, a note on the humanitarian side of things, but not directly related to mining: When the Portuguese colonies seceded in the 70s, many people returned or emigrated to Portugal with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and "diamonds" they had exchanged their farms and real estate for. I remember a few dinner conversations about how a few of them came to my father to assess the value of those stones, and most were chunks of quartz or other worthless crystals. I think some of those conversations were really tough, and one of the reasons he disconnected from work as much as he could (his hobby was electronics, and one of the reasons I got into computers was that he brought a Sinclair ZX81 from London after years of putting together various kits, including a HeathKit oscilloscope). So, in a way, diamonds are the reason I do what I do these days.

lordnacho 7y ago

I still wish I'd discovered Moissanite before I got married. The rock would have been multiples larger and I'd have the satisfaction of not contributing to a monopolistic and exploitative industry.

irishcoffee 7y ago
I was fortunate enough to discover moissanite. Wife loves it, and the price was somewhere in the ballpark of 90-95% cheaper than an equivalent size diamond. The added benefit is, everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them...
- matwood 7y ago
  > everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them It also avoids conversations that have few good outcomes. Tell someone who spent $$$$ on a diamond that you think diamonds are a waste of money or a humanitarian disaster, and it's not a great way to start a conversation. There are also other colored stones that I think are nicer looking than diamonds, but moissanite provides a nice way to stay within cultural norms without necessarily[1] contributing to the problem. [1] Obviously actively fighting against the whole diamond industry is better, but we all have to pick our battles.
  - galangalalgol 7y ago
    Synthetic diamond will eventually become so easy the industry won't be able to supress it anymore. The collapse will be interesting, in the bloddy sense of the term I suspect.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - bluedevil2k 7y ago
      Synthetic diamonds are not easy to produce and they take time and energy (literally). The only reason synthetics are made is because the price of real diamonds help prop up the price of artificial ones. If the market collapses, as you predict, than artificial diamonds don’t become economical to create any more. My prediction: new mines will continue to be found and real diamonds will have the same market hold they have now in 20 years.

dannyw 7y ago

We should crowdfund a PR campaign that diamonds are synonyms for death and exploitation, and it’s more humane for “any gem but a diamond”. A $10 million campaign or so, targeting youth especially, can have tremendous impacts on future generations.

jatgoodwin 7y ago
Except the diamonds discussed in the article are from Botswana, where the article states "the firm paid the Botswanan government eighty-five million dollars in taxes, and nearly thirty million in royalties, on profits of about a hundred and eighty-five million." Seems pretty good deal for the Botswanans.
- arczyx 7y ago
  To be fair, paying the government in taxes and royalty does not mean that the diamond is not obtained through exploitation of the local population while the corrupt officials took the money (this sometimes happened in my country). I don't really know about Botswana though, if those money actually go to the Botswanans then good for them.
  - grecy 7y ago
    > I don't really know about Botswana though, if those money actually go to the Botswanans then good for them. Botswana is probably the best run and least corrupt country in Southern Africa (maybe all of Africa). They've never had a war of any kind, are incredibly friendly to everyone regardless of skin color, etc. etc. They are famous for tricking the British into giving them mineral rights before they were granted independence, and have used that money wisely the benefit the local people. Huge success story, and fantastic country.
    - tacheiordache 7y ago
      We, Romanians are very emotionally attached to Botswana’s currency. It means in Romanian, the most important thing men pride themselves with.

ggm 7y ago

E.J. Epstein's "the death of the diamond" was a great read. But, since 1984 is long behind us, kind of wrong. I had no idea how much bort the world consumes. Industrial diamonds are .. industrial. Hard to feel romantic about drill bits and cutting saws. Also the simplicity of the financials to lend liz Taylor the dough to buy the diamond .. Who actually bought it if the money came from the shop?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pmart123 7y ago
Well, push the commodity price to the limit. LVMH designing purses with diamond studs? Bedazzled dresses? Jewelry shifting more to intricate designs, brand increasing in importance, and more use of gold or platinum? If a girl in Iowa can easily get a 3 carat diamond ring, what will the girl in New York now want?

jake-low 7y ago

Folks who enjoyed this article may also be interested in this one [0] from The Atlantic, published in 1982, which chronicles the rise of the diamond industry during the 20th century. [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...

dang 7y ago
Discussed 5 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20818618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20818618 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4535611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4535611 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1405698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1405698 Also 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1110283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1110283 Those are the big threads. Lots of little ones too: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=tried%20sell%20diamond&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... The author showed up here once: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5414757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5414757

pacamara619 7y ago

Is it possible to artificially create diamonds so that they have defects which make them slightly blue in colour?

iamgopal 7y ago
You mean boron impurities ?
Aunche 7y ago
Yeah. You can get artificial diamonds of pretty much every color. They aren't super popular though because everyone will assume that the diamond is artificial or even fake because natural blue diamonds cost $1 million.

anonu 7y ago

Really cool history. Thanks for sharing this. I can imagine if you "know the truth" about the business you're in you might want to get out. I felt like that about certain financial jobs I've had in the past. The actual work felt like it provided no real value to society, but the intellectual challenges were what kept me there.

andrepd 7y ago
>The actual work felt like it provided no real value to society A sign of a broken system that needs urgent repair. Most financial jobs, hft, adtech jobs... We have our best minds working on things that do not provide any useful value to society. This is not a good state of affairs.
- brandnewlow 7y ago
  I can’t speak to finance but I get confused when people bash advertising in broad strokes. People running businesses need ways to exchange money for new customers. That’s advertising. Making that more efficient might surely be annoying but a complete waste of time?
  - kijin 7y ago
    The parent said adtech, not advertising. What we call adtech today is advertising plus tracking. The tracking part is what most people seem to have a problem with.
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      Post-war advertising isn't much better itself, being based to make people to want things they might not even need...
      - kijin 7y ago
        Yep, the marketing for diamonds was a prime example of that. But at least De Beers didn't try to track individual brides and grooms and show them different diamonds based on what they were talking about on the phone. Maybe they do now.

jacobwilliamroy 7y ago

What do you do with your diamonds? Are they supposed to have nice piezoelectric properties or something?

BlueTemplar 7y ago
Well, it's one of the hardest known materials...
- jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
  I found an excerpt from geology.com about uses for lab-grown diamonds: "wear-resistant bearings, heat sinks for computer processors, and high-temperature windows."
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    > heat sinks Wow, I forgot about that - looks like that you can buy one of the best thermal pastes out there for VERY reasonable prices... and it's 90%+ diamond !!

bruceb 7y ago

One way to shake up the industry is just not to buy diamond wedding rings. That simple. Big rocks on a finger make the person seem needy and insecure. Like I need this big flashy thing is proof of my worth.

jtms 7y ago
Anecdotally, many younger couples I know are going with lab made stones or gemstones other than diamonds.
- greenonions 7y ago
  I bought my wife a simple gold band. We were students. I told her how Americans spend so much money on diamonds and she was like, "that's stupid, you could go on such a good vacation and have nice food."

devin 7y ago

Fantastic article. Before you make a comment about the diamond industry, read the whole thing. I’ve had the same view, but this article moved me. Also, the audio version is wonderfully read. Recommended.

quickthrower2 7y ago
As always, beware that the article might be biased. I don't think it is too tinfoil to suspect that the diamond industry does good PR.

olliswe 7y ago

I currently live in Sierra Leone working as a software dev, and just came back from an evening jog around the largest diamond mine in West Africa. It's crazy how much pain an misery diamonds have caused to this country. The citizens here in Koidu don't get any of the income of the diamonds, and live it extreme poverty... Meanwhile the guys from De Beers are living bougie lives in their maximum security compounds, with a pool, western supermarket and bar.

pinkfoot 7y ago
> The citizens here in Koidu don't get any of the income of the diamonds. Surely the issue of where and how minimg licences and sales revenue is distributed in SL, is something the folk of Koidu should take up with their government. As with any company anyehere, De Beers pays the share they are obliged to to the authorities.
- grecy 7y ago
  > As with any company anyehere, De Beers pays the share they are obliged to to the authorities BP and Facebook aren't paying their share of taxes in the USA, do you think De Beers is going to do so in Sierra Leone? The only difference is there are just enough tax dollars in the US to make life tolerable for the masses - cheap beer & cigarettes, sports on TV and elementary education.
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    BP and Facebook aren't paying their share of taxes in the USA, do you think De Beers is going to do so in Sierra Leone? Do you have any evidence that thy aren't? Or do you just make things up?
    - grecy 7y ago
      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-biggest-companies-paid-little-to-no-federal-income-tax-last-year/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-big... BP Actually get tax credits, as does Amazon. So they pay negative taxes.

The_mboga_real 7y ago

Now do one about all the really poor diamond hunters, you fag

berlin1212 7y ago

Human rights violations - nobody wants to fix it!

Animats 7y ago

It's hard to take diamonds seriously any more. This is a diamond factory in China.[1] That's the "high pressure high temperature" process, a huge room of very strongly built presses. There's also the "controlled vapor deposition" process. Alibaba has huge lots of diamonds produced that way. Those are real diamonds. Mostly. You may get cubic zirconia. Cubic zirconia is so cheap that those stones come in plastic bags and are sold in lots of 1000. Distinguishing CVD diamonds from natural diamonds is getting harder each year. The diamond industry treats flawless, clear diamonds as the ideal, and that's what CVD produces best - perfect crystals with only carbon. It's based on a process from semiconductor manufacturing. Distinguishing good CVD diamonds from natural now requires rather elaborate equipment. [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-manufacturer-Diamond-Cubic-Press-with_62019698980.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-manufacturer-Di...

basch 7y ago
The only real benefit to distinguishing is to pay more for the same thing. A person asking to prove something is "real" is literally volunteering to overpay. Imagine having two ot of the otherwise same thing in front of you but one comes with an optional marketing hype tax.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> The diamond industry treats flawless, clear diamonds as the ideal Well, for approximately flawless, clear diamonds, yes, actually flawless, clear diamonds are the ideal. But, e.g., blue diamonds are, like, vastly preferred by the market over clear ones, with a couple orders of magnitude price premium, iirc.

brian-armstrong 7y ago

This article is absolutely an advertisement for the subject company. It is an interesting article but when reading it please keep in mind that it is not objective about its subject and is being used to promote a pro-diamond agenda.