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Let's hope this fad of "natural" transparent carbon crystals die quickly, as aluminum as a rare metal did. Its extraction, transformation and distribution chann

Let's hope this fad of "natural" transparent carbon crystals die quickly, as aluminum as a rare metal did. Its extraction, transformation and distribution channels deserve to quickly die.

makestuff 4y ago
Aren't diamonds not even that "rare" relative to other gemstones? The only difference is the artificial scarcity with diamonds.
- saxonww 4y ago
  not sure about the relative rarity, but De Beers did/does artificially limit available stock to keep prices up. If you read really anything about them, you'll see that market manipulation was core to their business model from the start.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    The fact that there's now an ad campaign for Only Natural Diamonds just shows how desperate they are.
    - onion2k 4y ago
      The diamond industry generates about $110bn a year (although most of that isn't shiny gemstones). You can see why companies might be desperately clinging on to that...
      - Turing_Machine 4y ago
        Right. Most diamonds are ugly brown or black things that get crushed up for use as industrial abrasives.
        dylan604 4y ago
        Ask the people using diamonds for this purpose if "diamonds are forever". I'm guessing a resounding "hell no" response. Denying the manipulation power of marketing is just sheer folly.
      - samatman 4y ago
        By weight, of course, the diamond industry is entirely industrial, gems are a rounding error. By value? Other way around. This source says $1.8B in 2018. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/industrial-diamond-market https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/industri...
    - nailer 4y ago
      I loved how they used 'natural' versus 'mined' to avoid focus on environmental issues.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        "There's a 10 point bump in exploring vs drilling" --Toby Ziegler, White House Communications Director, The West Wing
  - bluedevil2k 4y ago
    This hasn’t been true for 20 years. “The DeBeers monopoly” has become the go to argument for Reddit and sadly this far more educated forum. DeBeers isn’t even the biggest diamond producer any more, Alrosa is (Russian government company). Alrosa and DeBeers together are around 80% of production, so DeBeers no longer has pricing power. The reason for this - the discovery of diamond mines outside the DeBeers stronghold of Southern Africa - Russia, Canada, Australia. DeBeers used to sell their diamonds on a take it or leave it style. Cutters could take their sale price or not, but a “no” essentially put yourself out of business. Now rough diamonds are mostly sold via auctions. There’s about an auction every 1-2 weeks across all the miners, so there’s always an opportunity for cutters to buy supply, and prices are out in the public.
    - rocket_surgeron 4y ago
      "DeBeers controls the diamond market" is a myth that won't die. As an aside, I've noticed that circle of people who love chiming in about diamonds tends to paradoxically overlap with the circle of people who think crypto is awesome despite the "vibe" of the two being extremely similar. I've found it best to just let them rage against their chosen machine.
      - Maursault 4y ago
        > "DeBeers controls the diamond market" is a myth that won't die. DeBeers was a monopoly that wouldn't die for 90 years longer than this upstart myth has existed. Compare to Christmas, come back and comment in 2000 years, and we'll just see if it's really "a myth that won't die." I doubt it'll make it past 2030. You should really be more cautious declaring an eternal myth so prematurely.
    - saxonww 4y ago
      I actually didn't know the current breakdown, which is why I wrote 'did/does'. I believe the rest of my comment is correct.
  - somat 4y ago
    My understanding is that de beers created most of the luxury diamond market in the first place. Prior to a particularly successful de beers advertising campaign diamonds were not all that associated with wedding rings. now, it is most often the expected thing. https://www.jaredvandermeer.com/3-reasons-the-de-beers-a-diamond-is-forever-campaign-changed-the-world/ https://www.jaredvandermeer.com/3-reasons-the-de-beers-a-dia...
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Diamonds are actually quite abundant -- hundreds of kilometers below the surface of the Earth.
arghwhat 4y ago
The mind boggles at the amount of resources spent on trying to distinguish stuff dug out from the ground from stuff made in a lab, and "educating" people in this process. It is such a shame when a person's shiny rock is ever so slightly shinier than those that cost lives to dig out of dirt.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  It's just self-interest, really. The PR submarine in action.
- ansible 4y ago
  If you take a long hard look at the overall economy, well, we waste a lot of time and energy on frivolous things. All in the name of supposedly making ourselves feel better. Which of those are actually important, and which of those are not? Who is to judge? Some people will only be happy riding actual jet skis, where others will be happy riding one in a video game, which uses comparatively fewer resources. Should we outlaw or more severely regulate actual jet skis? Ditto for other activities (horse riding vs Red Dead Redemption 2 or Breath of the Wild). Just for the record, I'd like to see everyone getting out there in the real world riding bicycles... but I'm not prepared to legislate that as the preferred outdoor activity. And the same argument can be made for lots of things, from suborbital launches to gigantic art projects, to suburban cities vs. high-density walkable cities. We could actually raise up everyone's living standards and have them all work less hours per week with some attitude adjustment, commonsense regulations and reorienting of our national priorities. I don't know when that's going to happen though.
Isamu 4y ago
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson is a fun book, where diamond becomes an extremely cheap building material due to nanotechnology.
- nfriedly 4y ago
  Hey, quick question, I just noticed the subtitle of Diamond Age is "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" - are there actually illustrations in the book that I'd be missing if I bought the Audiobook rather than a printed copy?
  - thfuran 4y ago
    I doubt it, though I only have the audiobook. The subtitle refers to an in-story book.
  - woodwireandfood 4y ago
    I don't remember any in the printed version, but it's been long enough that I'm not certain.
  - dmitrygr 4y ago
    "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" is a device (smart book for educating) that was created by a character in a book. The book itself it not illustrated
    - nfriedly 4y ago
      Thank you!
    - jon_richards 4y ago
      One of my favorite moments from that is when the book tricks the child into starting to learn to read. I think we’re not far off from needing AI “best friends” to raise us and assist us through an increasingly complicated world.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  The Diamond Age spends a really small amount of time talking about actual diamonds. So, while fun, I disagree it's on topic here. (But if you want a book about nanotechnology, yes, it's it.)
bluedevil2k 4y ago
> extraction, transformation and distribution channels deserve to quickly die. Why? Have any reasons for your belief? There’s a reason diamonds are expensive and it’s not “artificial scarcity” as the uneducated people here like to claim. It’s because people want the diamonds and are willing to pay the expensive prices!

Let's hope this fad of "natural" transparent carbon crystals die quickly, as aluminum as a rare metal did. Its extraction, transformation and distribution channels deserve to quickly die.

makestuff 4y ago

Aren't diamonds not even that "rare" relative to other gemstones? The only difference is the artificial scarcity with diamonds.

saxonww 4y ago
not sure about the relative rarity, but De Beers did/does artificially limit available stock to keep prices up. If you read really anything about them, you'll see that market manipulation was core to their business model from the start.
- dylan604 4y ago
  The fact that there's now an ad campaign for Only Natural Diamonds just shows how desperate they are.
  - onion2k 4y ago
    The diamond industry generates about $110bn a year (although most of that isn't shiny gemstones). You can see why companies might be desperately clinging on to that...
    - Turing_Machine 4y ago
      Right. Most diamonds are ugly brown or black things that get crushed up for use as industrial abrasives.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        Ask the people using diamonds for this purpose if "diamonds are forever". I'm guessing a resounding "hell no" response. Denying the manipulation power of marketing is just sheer folly.
    - samatman 4y ago
      By weight, of course, the diamond industry is entirely industrial, gems are a rounding error. By value? Other way around. This source says $1.8B in 2018. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/industrial-diamond-market https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/industri...
  - nailer 4y ago
    I loved how they used 'natural' versus 'mined' to avoid focus on environmental issues.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      "There's a 10 point bump in exploring vs drilling" --Toby Ziegler, White House Communications Director, The West Wing
- bluedevil2k 4y ago
  This hasn’t been true for 20 years. “The DeBeers monopoly” has become the go to argument for Reddit and sadly this far more educated forum. DeBeers isn’t even the biggest diamond producer any more, Alrosa is (Russian government company). Alrosa and DeBeers together are around 80% of production, so DeBeers no longer has pricing power. The reason for this - the discovery of diamond mines outside the DeBeers stronghold of Southern Africa - Russia, Canada, Australia. DeBeers used to sell their diamonds on a take it or leave it style. Cutters could take their sale price or not, but a “no” essentially put yourself out of business. Now rough diamonds are mostly sold via auctions. There’s about an auction every 1-2 weeks across all the miners, so there’s always an opportunity for cutters to buy supply, and prices are out in the public.
  - rocket_surgeron 4y ago
    "DeBeers controls the diamond market" is a myth that won't die. As an aside, I've noticed that circle of people who love chiming in about diamonds tends to paradoxically overlap with the circle of people who think crypto is awesome despite the "vibe" of the two being extremely similar. I've found it best to just let them rage against their chosen machine.
    - Maursault 4y ago
      > "DeBeers controls the diamond market" is a myth that won't die. DeBeers was a monopoly that wouldn't die for 90 years longer than this upstart myth has existed. Compare to Christmas, come back and comment in 2000 years, and we'll just see if it's really "a myth that won't die." I doubt it'll make it past 2030. You should really be more cautious declaring an eternal myth so prematurely.
  - saxonww 4y ago
    I actually didn't know the current breakdown, which is why I wrote 'did/does'. I believe the rest of my comment is correct.
- somat 4y ago
  My understanding is that de beers created most of the luxury diamond market in the first place. Prior to a particularly successful de beers advertising campaign diamonds were not all that associated with wedding rings. now, it is most often the expected thing. https://www.jaredvandermeer.com/3-reasons-the-de-beers-a-diamond-is-forever-campaign-changed-the-world/ https://www.jaredvandermeer.com/3-reasons-the-de-beers-a-dia...
pfdietz 4y ago
Diamonds are actually quite abundant -- hundreds of kilometers below the surface of the Earth.

arghwhat 4y ago

The mind boggles at the amount of resources spent on trying to distinguish stuff dug out from the ground from stuff made in a lab, and "educating" people in this process. It is such a shame when a person's shiny rock is ever so slightly shinier than those that cost lives to dig out of dirt.

HPsquared 4y ago
It's just self-interest, really. The PR submarine in action.
ansible 4y ago
If you take a long hard look at the overall economy, well, we waste a lot of time and energy on frivolous things. All in the name of supposedly making ourselves feel better. Which of those are actually important, and which of those are not? Who is to judge? Some people will only be happy riding actual jet skis, where others will be happy riding one in a video game, which uses comparatively fewer resources. Should we outlaw or more severely regulate actual jet skis? Ditto for other activities (horse riding vs Red Dead Redemption 2 or Breath of the Wild). Just for the record, I'd like to see everyone getting out there in the real world riding bicycles... but I'm not prepared to legislate that as the preferred outdoor activity. And the same argument can be made for lots of things, from suborbital launches to gigantic art projects, to suburban cities vs. high-density walkable cities. We could actually raise up everyone's living standards and have them all work less hours per week with some attitude adjustment, commonsense regulations and reorienting of our national priorities. I don't know when that's going to happen though.

Isamu 4y ago

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson is a fun book, where diamond becomes an extremely cheap building material due to nanotechnology.

nfriedly 4y ago
Hey, quick question, I just noticed the subtitle of Diamond Age is "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" - are there actually illustrations in the book that I'd be missing if I bought the Audiobook rather than a printed copy?
- thfuran 4y ago
  I doubt it, though I only have the audiobook. The subtitle refers to an in-story book.
- woodwireandfood 4y ago
  I don't remember any in the printed version, but it's been long enough that I'm not certain.
- dmitrygr 4y ago
  "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" is a device (smart book for educating) that was created by a character in a book. The book itself it not illustrated
  - nfriedly 4y ago
    Thank you!
  - jon_richards 4y ago
    One of my favorite moments from that is when the book tricks the child into starting to learn to read. I think we’re not far off from needing AI “best friends” to raise us and assist us through an increasingly complicated world.
marcosdumay 4y ago
The Diamond Age spends a really small amount of time talking about actual diamonds. So, while fun, I disagree it's on topic here. (But if you want a book about nanotechnology, yes, it's it.)

bluedevil2k 4y ago

> extraction, transformation and distribution channels deserve to quickly die. Why? Have any reasons for your belief? There’s a reason diamonds are expensive and it’s not “artificial scarcity” as the uneducated people here like to claim. It’s because people want the diamonds and are willing to pay the expensive prices!