All that jewelry industry looks fake to me.
There is absolutely no value in man-made or nonmanmade jewels at all.
I am wondering why people pay even a penny for that.
De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
151–160 of 455 posts
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#152Diamonds are overpriced through social engineering. There is no real need for these carbon crystals to cost that much. But diamond producers inflated demand for them, turning them into status symbols.
Prices were based upon supply which for the longest time, DeBeers controlled. They controlled the quantity and quality of the stones they offered at their price. When diamonds were found in Russia and Canada, their control of the market went away. Diamonds are not nor ever were rare.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#153Diamonds are overpriced through social engineering. There is no real need for these carbon crystals to cost that much. But diamond producers inflated demand for them, turning them into status symbols.
Prices were based upon supply which for the longest time, DeBeers controlled. They controlled the quantity and quality of the stones they offered at their price. When diamonds were found in Russia and Canada, their control of the market went away. Diamonds are not nor ever were rare.
Demand for them is still inflated. They were not commonly used as gems in the past.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think what they is saying is that a jeweller could get synthetic diamonds from another source for the same or less than Lightbox's marked diamonds and on-sell them as real. Only the original jeweller would know they aren't real, especially if the manufacturer can introduce random impurities.
What do you mean by "aren't real". In what way is a manufactured diamonds not real? My understanding is that they are in every respect indistinguishable except for perhaps being too perfect under magnification.
In the same way that a fake Picasso isn't real because Picasso never made it, a lab grown diamond isn't "real" because the earth didn't make it.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly the kind of misinformation being described above. Why would "traditional" crops going through random mutations be any safer than GMO crops going through highly controlled, highly tested mutations? It isn't a mysterious process - it's science. It allows us to create products like Golden Rice to alleviate malnutrition and increase crop yields. It's probably the only thing which has helped curtail world…
Breeding over time is slow. When you select crops over generations to improve a seed stock you are not making radical changes quickly, and you are not introducing genes from other species. It is the pace of change and the scope of change that makes GMO crops more dangerous than those we have modified over 1000s of years of selective breeding. And BTW, even in natural selection, there can be instances where a naturall…
>When you select crops over generations to improve a seed stock you are not making radical changes quickly, and you are not introducing genes from other species.
Non-GMO breeding methods can also mutate rapidly. One example is mutation breeding, where a plant is exposed to high levels of radiation to encourage rapid mutation. This does not require any labelling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding
As for genes from other species, this is known as horizontal gene transfer and it actually does happen in nature. It's even occurred in humans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer
It's worth bearing in mind that there is no such thing as a "fish gene", or "strawberry gene". They're just genes. All forms of life have considerable overlap between them.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's not how disbelieving works. People disbelieve facts that would cost them to believe. If I believe in climate change, I have to make expensive life changes (sell the SUV, buy a Tesla, etc). Therefore I will not believe in it. This belief is 100% honest, BTW. This is key to understand! For diamonds, the incentives are reversed. If I believe that artificial diamonds are as good as the natural kind, I can get a we…
> If I believe in climate change, I have to make expensive life changes (sell the SUV, buy a Tesla, etc).
In part this is true, but none of those are necessary, but what is neceaary for most deniers if they flip is “abandon my political tribe, whose leaders have defined the belief in climate change as outside the bounds of the tribe.”
That's really very nearly the only factor that matters.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#157"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…
My guess there are doped with detectable elements as to ensure they are never confused with real diamonds.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#158THIS IS NOT ABOUT MAN-MADE DIAMONDS! Read this article: https://www.thestar.com/business/2018/05/29/de-beers-to-sell... Read the last paragraph: The move also comes at a sensitive time for De Beers and its relationship with Botswana, the source of three-quarters of its diamonds. The two have a sales agreement that gives De Beers the right to market and sell the diamonds from Botswana. The deal, which gives De Beers i…
Good? If the acceptable price paid for diamonds in both the wholesale and retail markets is lowered, then the pressure to mine diamonds (and the attendant violence & natural damage) should be lowered as well. That seems like a good outcome? Additionally, DeBeers is unlikely to be able to dominate the lab-grown market so this step should legitimize lab-grown stones with little risk of creating another monopoly.
This doesn't mean that retail prices would drop.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#159What you are all not getting is that a diamond is not about its chemical properties, but about economic signalling. Just like artificial fur could not replace natural fur, man-made diamonds will never be the luxury item mined diamonds are today. Diamonds, just like gold, are not valuable because of their physical properties, but because they are rare. If someone invented a way to produce arbitrary amounts of gold at…
Gold is an element and cannot be manufactured. Diamonds are a crystal of pure carbon. They can be manufactured, and by objective metric, the manufactured ones are higher quality for less money.
Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Educated people who hate GMO are instant signal that they don’t understand science. A good filter
That's not saying much. Most of us don't understand most science behind anything outside of our limited specializations. These beliefs are manifestations of people's distrust of large institutions. People believe GMO is bad because they believe that large corporations would do anything for a buck regardless of long term consequences. Alien abduction, anti-vaxers, 9/11 inside job and other conspiracy theories are just…
There's a world of difference between a proper conspiracy and thinking GMOs and powerful pesticides might not be a good idea. I don't avoid them but I don't think it's all that unlikely they'll turn out to have negative effects.