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De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

money.cnn.com

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Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#191

Post by barrkel »

sampo wrote: post #164
hutzlibu wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The (small) organic farmers I know dont use pesticides at all. And as far as I know, here in europe they would not be allowed to use anything realy toxic, when they want to have the organic label. So things are different in the US then? Or also for europe? sources please.

Here's a list of 12 chemicals approved for use in organic farming: https://risk-monger.com/2016/04/13/the-risk-mongers-dirty-do...

That site believes organic farming is a hoax. It also also seems to be mixing up data about US regulation and UK opinion (and thus EU regulation). An intro to EU regulation for organic plant farming is https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/eu-policy/eu-rules-...

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#192

Post by barrkel »

driverdan wrote: post #119
hutzlibu wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic food is worse than food wich was treated with various chemicals to kill living things? Thats news to me. But you probably mean "alternatives" for producing dirt cheap. Then yes, there are much worse substances around. Doesn't make it good, though.

Organic food is treated with pesticides and herbicides too. There's a limited list of allowed chemicals, some of which are much worse than glycophosphate.

To be sure we're all on the same page, there are differences in organic regulation in the US vs the EU. I don't know much about the US situation, but an outline of EU general regulations for organic plants is https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/eu-policy/eu-rules-... :

> Basic substances allowed in organic agriculture comply with two criteria: i) they are of vegetable or animal origin ii) they are considered to be "foodstuff"

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#193

Post by nradov »

namibj wrote: post #168
p1necone wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In my case it's with the hard push to Hybrids, which is a major risk for the stability of the world's food supply (due to the strong mono culture, it's relatively easy for a willing player to first stock up on food, and then deliver pests for all major food hybrids that are only as effective because they are hybrids and not a healthy pool of genetic diversity. Also, if the hybrid seeds producing facilities were to be…

If it's so easy to deliver pests which target those crops then why hasn't any terrorist group done it yet? The reality is that it would be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible with current technology.

Farmers aren't stupid. Monsanto has no way to prevent them from using non-hybrid seeds. Farmers will plant whichever seeds they expect to deliver the highest ROI.

Grain production before pesticides was far lower. Back then famines were common rather than something that only happened during wartime. Don't ask us to return to the dark ages.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#194

Post by nradov »

sametmax wrote: post #112
p1necone wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Also, the fact is that Monsanto, which has had trouble with its ethical reputation, is very adamant about GMO. So if you don't trust Monsanto for most things, you will especially not trust it to tell you the truth about the safety of its products nor about the completeness of their tests to ensure said safety.

What specifically has Monsanto done that was unethical?

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#195

Post by pdkl95 »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #146
SquareWheel wrote: post #122

Earlier 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…

> more dangerous

That kind of unqualified/unjustified claim is misinformation designed to generate an emotional reaction, not rational analysis.

Nature often produces very dangerous on it's own. It doesn't always take that long. For example, Tifton 85, a hybrid of bermudagrass created using traditional cross pollination methods, has the unfortunate property of producing cyanide in some soils[1].

Testing is important regardless of the techniques used to create a new species. Focusing on species created using modern techniques improperly ignores the numerous older methods that are just as dangerous (and often harder to predict).

[1] https://www.wired.com/2012/06/cyanide-and-poisoned-cows/

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#196

Post by ehsankia »

Tyr42 wrote: post #171
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

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…

Compare synthetic vanilla flavouring vs plant based. Same molecule, but big price difference.

vinyl vs flac. film vs digital.

Not quite 100% identical, but yeah.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#197

Post by ISL »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #127
ISL wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love for synthetic diamond to bring the price down on gemstones. A lot of people are engaged in arduous and risky work to produce natural stones. The environmental costs, too, are real. Modern high-quality synthetic materials, whether in gemstones or other uses, have so much to offer in fashion innovation. Indeed, diamond jewelers claim that silicon carbide (SiC) has "excess fire" as it has greater dispersion tha…

>> Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made diamonds down to the price of Moissanite, and create a artificial distinction between natural and man made dimaonds. > Indeed, diamond jewelers claim that silicon carbide (SiC) has "excess fire" as it has greater dispersion than diamond. SiC has a greater index of refraction, which improves the properties of total-internal-reflection as well! As…

Yep, I'm aware. I've always felt that the material should embrace what it is -- a crystalline material allowed by nature but manufactured by experts [1] -- rather than attempt to meet naturally-occurring gemstones on their turf. (Yes, crystalline SiC has been found in nature as moissanite, but it is exceedingly rare.)

For some people, geologists in particular, there is a romance to the formation of a natural diamond due to heat and pressure within the earth. That's great too!

[1] Look at your high-efficiency LED lights to find some SiC in your house. Thanks, Cree and others!

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#198

Post by kbenson »

sk5t wrote: post #186
test6554 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is "trying" to be less stupid. But selling my wife's diamond rings and buying cubic zirconia replicas at this point feels like a very stupid move even though I know I will net a bunch of money up front, I hear divorces are very expensive.

If it's any solace, I understand the secondhand market for diamonds to be quite weak.

Purposefully weak, to my understanding, to discourage a secondary market.

I remember an article years ago that went into detail about De Beers' manipulation of the market, and how change from "larger is better" to "clearer is better" happened just as a large mine outside of De Beers control opened that had quite a few large diamonds coming from it on a regular basis. That same article made some assertions about the secondary market being somewhat manipulated, IIRC, but this was close to a decade ago, so sourcing it might be hard, and I'm also unsure how accurate it was at this point. I think it was about how modern incarnation of idea of giving rings for marriage was also largely manipulated by De Beers.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#199

Post by ISL »

nradov wrote: post #183
ISL wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love for synthetic diamond to bring the price down on gemstones. A lot of people are engaged in arduous and risky work to produce natural stones. The environmental costs, too, are real. Modern high-quality synthetic materials, whether in gemstones or other uses, have so much to offer in fashion innovation. Indeed, diamond jewelers claim that silicon carbide (SiC) has "excess fire" as it has greater dispersion tha…

Never mind about jewelry and fashion. Cheap synthetic diamonds would open up a host of industrial applications. Bring on "The Diamond Age".

When the Diamond Age arrives, it's going to be amazing. For a sneak peek, look up "diamond-like coatings", already in use in physics experiments and industry.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#200

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

ISL wrote: post #71
fgonzag wrote: 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…

I'd love for synthetic diamond to bring the price down on gemstones. A lot of people are engaged in arduous and risky work to produce natural stones. The environmental costs, too, are real. Modern high-quality synthetic materials, whether in gemstones or other uses, have so much to offer in fashion innovation. Indeed, diamond jewelers claim that silicon carbide (SiC) has "excess fire" as it has greater dispersion tha…

Or you know, just not buy gemstones, especially diamonds that cause many of the issues you mention.
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