7 ms·

> I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Artificial diamonds, you mean. The natural ones will keep their price, just as "hand-crafted" goods did

> I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Artificial diamonds, you mean. The natural ones will keep their price, just as "hand-crafted" goods did (and, I suspect, as "human-produced" content in the future will); it's a matter of status and signalling that you can afford to buy an inferior, more expensive product.

striking 2y ago
I'd expect this to be true if you could tell at a glance. But the new stuff looks like the old stuff, but bigger and better.
batch12 2y ago
Now we just need artificial diamonds that are flawed enough to be indistinguishable from real diamonds.
- Joker_vD 2y ago
  There is a whole sub-industry of putting fake mosquitoes into fake amber.
  - sdenton4 2y ago
    As long as the mosquitos contain real dinosaur blood, it's all good.
    - schmidtleonard 2y ago
      "We spared no expense!"
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      From chickens, right?
      - red1reaper 2y ago
        Chickens are indeed dinosaurs by all means, so sure, from chickens.
- A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
  They already do this with emeralds -- fake inclusions and flaws to make them look more like natural stones. If a natural emerald and a good synthetic emerald are distinguishable, it's often only because the synthetic one still looks too much better -- its color and overall clarity are still a little bit too good.
- vlachen 2y ago
  Just like the "distressed wood" trend caused a booming business of making products that all have the exact same "distressed" pattern. History doesn't repeat, but it certainly rhymes.
  - iteratethis 2y ago
    I know somebody that works in a wooden floor business. They take perfect new wood and move it through a cylinder that drops pebbles on it. They sell it for 2-3 times the price of undamaged wood.
gwbas1c 2y ago
It's based on supply and demand. In 2012, when I was shopping for an engagement ring, a natural 2ct diamond cost $250,000. (I bought a 2ct moissanite for much, much less, and my wife is very happy with it.) When I looked in fall 2023, a natural 2ct diamond cost $20,000. That's a loss of over 90% of value, not counting inflation! (Now the supply of diamonds is much higher, and the demand for natural diamonds is much lower.) I suspect that natural diamonds will be sold for a 40-300% premium over manufactured. I also wonder if impurities will become fashionable, just to show that a specific diamond is actually natural and can't be made in a lab. > Artificial diamonds BTW, there is no such thing as an artificial diamond. A manufactured diamond is 100% diamond, for all intents and purposes.
- tikhonj 2y ago
  > I also wonder if impurities will become fashionable, just to show that a specific diamond is actually natural and can't be made in a lab. I hope that happens for purely aesthetic reasons too: natural "imperfections" add a lot of visual variety and interest that's otherwise missing in a lot of diamond jewellery—at least the sort that I've seen.
  - meling 2y ago
    Pretty sure you can add random/natural imperfections in the lab too!
- kaashif 2y ago
  > BTW, there is no such thing as an artificial diamond. A manufactured diamond is 100% diamond What do you believe the distinction between artificial and manufactured is? As far as I'm aware, they're almost synonyms. Dictionaries literally list "man made" as one of the definitions of artificial.
  - pessimizer 2y ago
    A man-made television isn't an artificial television; a man-made taco isn't an artificial taco. Man-made beef and artificial beef are both the same thing: a not-beef beef substitute. Beef is by definition cow-made. Man-made diamonds are just diamonds.
rowanG077 2y ago
Why? Natural diamonds are the inferior product in every way.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  For the same reason you can make a print of a classic painting, and digitally brighten and re-saturate the colors to counteract the darkening and yellowing of the original with age. Remove all of the cracking too. And you'll still only be able to sell the print for tens of dollars, while the original is worth millions. People attach value to authenticity and originals and tradition, however they define that.
  - notfed 2y ago
    It sounds like some people want to pay more money. Good for them. I'm happy to have a cheaper option.
    - satvikpendem 2y ago
      Yes, this is a form of signaling in social psychology, an interesting phenomenon that happens with originals versus "replicas."
    - fidotron 2y ago
      The whole point is to spend money and to be an honest signal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory In the event artificial diamonds are genuinely indistinguishable from natural ones they will all, natural and artificial, become worthless aside from practical applications.
      - freen 2y ago
        Sylvester McMonkey McBean at work.
      - notfed 2y ago
        That's a really, really dim signal though, right? You literally need a microscope to see the signal.
diebeforei485 2y ago
> The natural ones will keep their price But they haven't.
bluGill 2y ago
Given the moral conditions around natural diamonds it is artificial diamonds that should command a premium.
- rodgerd 2y ago
  Basically you're paying extra money for the murdering at this point.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  Seems like it would have the opposite effect from what you want You want people to prefer artificial diamonds because they're cheaper, so it becomes less financially viable to sell natural diamonds, so the people involved in that immoral stuff you're mentioning go out of business
Nursie 2y ago
>> will keep their price I think this is a bit of a strong prediction. It's already been interesting to watch the rhetoric switch from "Natural ones are stronger and more pure" to "Manufactured diamonds don't have the flaws that give character". Which itself is fairly short-sighted, we can already manufacture things like star-sapphires with specific impurities in them. So in the end all that will be left is "this one is natural". It will be a 'veblen' type signal for some people... but maybe it'll start to be a signal of gullibility, and also of recklessness or callousness, because diamond mining has both environmental and human costs.
bambax 2y ago
High-end watches are worse at telling the time than electronic watches, but they are visibly different and identifiable, so they can broadcast status. Diamonds made by man or nature are now indistinguishable, except to highly trained experts (and even then, not always), so it's unclear why anyone would prefer the expensive kind.
- GJim 2y ago
  > so they can broadcast status. Ummmm no. As a lover of clockwork, I couldn't give a toss what anyone else thinks of my clock or watch collection.
olalonde 2y ago
Did they? I can't think of many hand-crafted goods that survived a superior massed produced version. Plus, the signal value is lost once the natural and manufactured versions become indistinguishable.
GJim 2y ago
> Artificial diamonds, you mean. Synthetic diamonds, you mean. There is noting artificial about them! They are diamonds.
- Joker_vD 2y ago
  They were created by humans; therefore, "artificial", or "manufactured". Just because there is no practical way to distinguish them from the ones that appeared naturally doesn't mean they weren't created artificially. "But this is a purely philosophical difference then!" Yes, it is. Humans still take such silly differences into an account, consider e.g. replicas of artwork made by the original artist themself. Are they genuine? Debatable!
  - GJim 2y ago
    artificial != manufactured
    - Joker_vD 2y ago
      Artificial: made by people, often as a copy of something natural. To manufacture: to produce goods in large numbers, usually in a factory using machines. Seems pretty synonymous to me. Heck, Collins dictionary [0] straight up states they're synonyms. [0] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/artificial https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/artific...

striking 2y ago

I'd expect this to be true if you could tell at a glance. But the new stuff looks like the old stuff, but bigger and better.

batch12 2y ago

Now we just need artificial diamonds that are flawed enough to be indistinguishable from real diamonds.

Joker_vD 2y ago
There is a whole sub-industry of putting fake mosquitoes into fake amber.
- sdenton4 2y ago
  As long as the mosquitos contain real dinosaur blood, it's all good.
  - schmidtleonard 2y ago
    "We spared no expense!"
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    From chickens, right?
    - red1reaper 2y ago
      Chickens are indeed dinosaurs by all means, so sure, from chickens.
A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
They already do this with emeralds -- fake inclusions and flaws to make them look more like natural stones. If a natural emerald and a good synthetic emerald are distinguishable, it's often only because the synthetic one still looks too much better -- its color and overall clarity are still a little bit too good.
vlachen 2y ago
Just like the "distressed wood" trend caused a booming business of making products that all have the exact same "distressed" pattern. History doesn't repeat, but it certainly rhymes.
- iteratethis 2y ago
  I know somebody that works in a wooden floor business. They take perfect new wood and move it through a cylinder that drops pebbles on it. They sell it for 2-3 times the price of undamaged wood.

gwbas1c 2y ago

It's based on supply and demand. In 2012, when I was shopping for an engagement ring, a natural 2ct diamond cost $250,000. (I bought a 2ct moissanite for much, much less, and my wife is very happy with it.) When I looked in fall 2023, a natural 2ct diamond cost $20,000. That's a loss of over 90% of value, not counting inflation! (Now the supply of diamonds is much higher, and the demand for natural diamonds is much lower.) I suspect that natural diamonds will be sold for a 40-300% premium over manufactured. I also wonder if impurities will become fashionable, just to show that a specific diamond is actually natural and can't be made in a lab. > Artificial diamonds BTW, there is no such thing as an artificial diamond. A manufactured diamond is 100% diamond, for all intents and purposes.

tikhonj 2y ago
> I also wonder if impurities will become fashionable, just to show that a specific diamond is actually natural and can't be made in a lab. I hope that happens for purely aesthetic reasons too: natural "imperfections" add a lot of visual variety and interest that's otherwise missing in a lot of diamond jewellery—at least the sort that I've seen.
- meling 2y ago
  Pretty sure you can add random/natural imperfections in the lab too!
kaashif 2y ago
> BTW, there is no such thing as an artificial diamond. A manufactured diamond is 100% diamond What do you believe the distinction between artificial and manufactured is? As far as I'm aware, they're almost synonyms. Dictionaries literally list "man made" as one of the definitions of artificial.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  A man-made television isn't an artificial television; a man-made taco isn't an artificial taco. Man-made beef and artificial beef are both the same thing: a not-beef beef substitute. Beef is by definition cow-made. Man-made diamonds are just diamonds.

rowanG077 2y ago

Why? Natural diamonds are the inferior product in every way.

crazygringo 2y ago
For the same reason you can make a print of a classic painting, and digitally brighten and re-saturate the colors to counteract the darkening and yellowing of the original with age. Remove all of the cracking too. And you'll still only be able to sell the print for tens of dollars, while the original is worth millions. People attach value to authenticity and originals and tradition, however they define that.
- notfed 2y ago
  It sounds like some people want to pay more money. Good for them. I'm happy to have a cheaper option.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    Yes, this is a form of signaling in social psychology, an interesting phenomenon that happens with originals versus "replicas."
  - fidotron 2y ago
    The whole point is to spend money and to be an honest signal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory In the event artificial diamonds are genuinely indistinguishable from natural ones they will all, natural and artificial, become worthless aside from practical applications.
    - freen 2y ago
      Sylvester McMonkey McBean at work.
    - notfed 2y ago
      That's a really, really dim signal though, right? You literally need a microscope to see the signal.

diebeforei485 2y ago

> The natural ones will keep their price But they haven't.

bluGill 2y ago

Given the moral conditions around natural diamonds it is artificial diamonds that should command a premium.

rodgerd 2y ago
Basically you're paying extra money for the murdering at this point.
bluefirebrand 2y ago
Seems like it would have the opposite effect from what you want You want people to prefer artificial diamonds because they're cheaper, so it becomes less financially viable to sell natural diamonds, so the people involved in that immoral stuff you're mentioning go out of business

Nursie 2y ago

>> will keep their price I think this is a bit of a strong prediction. It's already been interesting to watch the rhetoric switch from "Natural ones are stronger and more pure" to "Manufactured diamonds don't have the flaws that give character". Which itself is fairly short-sighted, we can already manufacture things like star-sapphires with specific impurities in them. So in the end all that will be left is "this one is natural". It will be a 'veblen' type signal for some people... but maybe it'll start to be a signal of gullibility, and also of recklessness or callousness, because diamond mining has both environmental and human costs.

bambax 2y ago

High-end watches are worse at telling the time than electronic watches, but they are visibly different and identifiable, so they can broadcast status. Diamonds made by man or nature are now indistinguishable, except to highly trained experts (and even then, not always), so it's unclear why anyone would prefer the expensive kind.

GJim 2y ago
> so they can broadcast status. Ummmm no. As a lover of clockwork, I couldn't give a toss what anyone else thinks of my clock or watch collection.

olalonde 2y ago

Did they? I can't think of many hand-crafted goods that survived a superior massed produced version. Plus, the signal value is lost once the natural and manufactured versions become indistinguishable.

GJim 2y ago

> Artificial diamonds, you mean. Synthetic diamonds, you mean. There is noting artificial about them! They are diamonds.

Joker_vD 2y ago
They were created by humans; therefore, "artificial", or "manufactured". Just because there is no practical way to distinguish them from the ones that appeared naturally doesn't mean they weren't created artificially. "But this is a purely philosophical difference then!" Yes, it is. Humans still take such silly differences into an account, consider e.g. replicas of artwork made by the original artist themself. Are they genuine? Debatable!
- GJim 2y ago
  artificial != manufactured
  - Joker_vD 2y ago
    Artificial: made by people, often as a copy of something natural. To manufacture: to produce goods in large numbers, usually in a factory using machines. Seems pretty synonymous to me. Heck, Collins dictionary [0] straight up states they're synonyms. [0] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/artificial https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/artific...