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De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

money.cnn.com

51–60 of 455 posts

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#52
post #36
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Educated people who hate GMO are instant signal that they don’t understand science. A good filter

I don't necessarily hate all GMO but I'm very dubious about GMO crops that are engineered to withstand Glyphosate better and I prefer not to eat such crops because they are more likely to have been treated with this herbicide.

Why do you have that preference? It's my understanding that the alternatives are worse.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#53

Interestingly enough, this starts to bring up questions that have previously only been super active in science fiction circles, particularly, Star Trek: If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value? (Assuming, someday, that synthetic versions are excessively cheap, in Star Trek's case.) If you can replicate cooked food perfectly, will people still claim that "real" food…

You are biased indirectly towards labor.

Let me give you a machine. Do you know the molecular makeup for mom's sphagetti.

Do you know the design of a car, a microprocessor, a jumbojet.

In such era there will be a polar shift with art, music, design degrees etc. being the prestige ones.

Psychology potentially as disorders often have "abstract" cognitive "human" patterns at play heavily tied to primary emotions but moreso things like empathy, jealousy, shame, hope, pride etc. which are scientifically still somewhat magical, but can be very real roadblocks.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#54
post #10

"Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now" This is clearly a play to devalue the image of man made diamonds. "May not be forever" my ass, it's the exact same thing. Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made dia…

Interestingly enough, the way to differentiate man-made from natural diamonds is to look for flaws and impurities: man-made diamonds are much more likely to be purer and flawless.

If you want a natural stone that is "forever", look into the nature shop, they have tons of beautiful solid stones. If you want a shiny, pure gem stone, lab-grown is going to give the best quality.

Natural diamonds are hopefully becoming a commodity for wealthy and misguided hipsters. It is a good thing that the bloodstained business is failing.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#55
post #10

"Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now" This is clearly a play to devalue the image of man made diamonds. "May not be forever" my ass, it's the exact same thing. Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made dia…

Smart move. Throw enough marketing dollars at misinformation and you can convince hordes of people to doubt facts. Case in point. Despite overwhelming evidence there are people today who still debate climate change.

A diamond is forever, even if your climate is not. Using diamonds for carbon sequestration seems like the wrong approach, though.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#56
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, because “real” diamonds have very little intrinsic value. Now if we could cheaply manufacture Platinum, or your example of perfectly cooked food, your point would start to be relevant here. As it is, diamond is already a very artificial market.

>Not really, because “real” diamonds have very little intrinsic value Well, you're quite exaggerating here. Diamonds actually have some very useful physical properties, in particular regarding their hardness, thermal conductivity and optical properties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_properties_of_diamond

> “real” diamonds have very little intrinsic value

>> Diamonds actually have some very useful physical properties.

Physical properties shared and almost always improved upon by their synthetic counterparts. Someone using diamonds exclusively for their optical properties or hardness would probably prefer a synthetic diamond due to the lack of impurities.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#57
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, because “real” diamonds have very little intrinsic value. Now if we could cheaply manufacture Platinum, or your example of perfectly cooked food, your point would start to be relevant here. As it is, diamond is already a very artificial market.

>Not really, because “real” diamonds have very little intrinsic value Well, you're quite exaggerating here. Diamonds actually have some very useful physical properties, in particular regarding their hardness, thermal conductivity and optical properties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_properties_of_diamond

They do, but their ubiquity makes them cheap. Coal has useful properties, as does pig iron, but it’s only valuable in bulk. Think of diamond as “white coal” and you’re there.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#58
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the staggering number of anti-GMO laws and business ad campaigns.

Educated people who hate GMO are instant signal that they don’t understand science. A good filter

Lots of smart people have problems with Monsanto's business practices rather than GMO specifically.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#59
post #38
post #10

"Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now" This is clearly a play to devalue the image of man made diamonds. "May not be forever" my ass, it's the exact same thing. Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made dia…

Diamonds are forever... unless dropped from waist height onto a hard surface.

Hmm?

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#60
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are perfect, without inclusions, bubbles etc. really the only way to differentiate them. ironically.

You can introduce artificial defects during the manufacturing process to subvert detection of authenticity. Source: After reading this Wired article [1] ~15 years ago, myself and two friends tried to (unsuccessfully) put VC money together to commit to large amounts of manufactured diamonds for the consumer industry. [1] https://www.wired.com/2003/09/diamond/

Synthetic consumer diamonds is an interesting space, one that was actually explored by GE in the mid-late 90s. This article gave me flashbacks of "Straight from the Gut" by Jack Welch [1]... any chance you worked with that particular division? Even if not, it would be interesting to hear your story.

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=2GrqeGCE544C&pg=PT142&dq=I...

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