De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds • Hacker News Board

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#211

Post by briandear » Wed, May 30, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #174

BurningFrog wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most people believe in climate change also the so called sceptics as the climate is mostly changing. The disagreement mostly is about how severe its going to be and how much human affect it.

But see, any debate at all is blasphemy. The inability to accept skepticism is anti-science. There was a worldwide scientific consensus that Eugenics was a good thing in the early 1900s. But somehow the overwhelming “evidence” of its “benefits” suddenly fell out of favor. People that are hysterical about climate change are, incidentally in favor of the government curtailing freedom and controlling the means of production. To me, climate change is an acceptable trade off to avoid living under Bolshevism. When scientific “truth” becomes a political rationale for totalitarianism, then there’s a problem.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#212

Post by SkyMarshal » Wed, May 30, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

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…

Yup, exactly. The man-made diamond industry should just counter by talking up how they can make perfectly "pure" diamonds with zero imperfections in color or clarity, superior in quality to mined diamonds, and with no human lives lost. Just keep drilling that point home in all their sales and PR until it changes the dynamic. I'm sure the millennials will be receptive to that - cheap, better, not immoral.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#213

Post by stuntkite » Wed, May 30, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

19235982958329 wrote: post #190

stuntkite wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Trek frequently discussed things being slightly off when replicated. Troy wanted "real" chocolate when in a seriously bad mood. Picard kept cases of real caviar for special occasions. I mean, it's a writing trope designed to point out that they are far away from home and play with the concept that scarcity creates value and thus is interesting to human(oid)s. The ideals of a moneyless society by virtue of just b…

Since you bring up crypto as a source of scarcity in storing transactional value, I guess my crankiness compels me to note that there isn't a final say on computational resource asymmetry yet either, and is just as valid of a hope as the Star Trek replicator eliminating physical scarcity or more mundanely as the lessening grip of a diamond cartel. Right now there's currently a (publicly) huge 'security' margin on the…

I totally didn't bring up crypto as a source of scarcity. I brought it up as a ledger to keep track of chain of custody.

Your points are reasonably related though.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#214

Post by daryllxd » Wed, May 30, 2018, 5:02 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #109

godzillabrennus wrote: post #15

Earlier 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.

At the risk of diverging into politics, it's amazing how "influencers" can do this with social media posts without spending lots of money. As long as the information is from someone (company/individual/etc) perceived as reputable, people will believe almost anything at face value. It's much easier than researching something on their own. Whatever the message, say it loud and often, and it becomes accepted as true. Ca…

Yes, I agree, and it really is a feature (flaw?) of human psychology. As much as I want to say that I want to make sure that I research something before doing or buying it, more often than not I just choose something based on emotion. Even for something like programming, I wonder if I use libraries based on their utility or on the star power of the guy who built it. It takes a lot of mental power to weigh pros and cons versus just choosing and hoping for the best.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#215

Post by BjoernKW » Wed, May 30, 2018, 5:02 AM UTC

godzillabrennus wrote: post #15

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…

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.

I don't think that's such a good example. Climate change should be debated. Not if it's happening but to what extent and effect. Science after all is about questioning findings and theories. Discussing climate change shouldn't be about politics first and foremost but about science.

As for De Beers, throwing marketing dollars at misinformation pretty much has been their business model since the 1930s. Diamonds are a girl's best friend ...

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#216

Post by stuntkite » Wed, May 30, 2018, 5:05 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #202

stuntkite wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Trek frequently discussed things being slightly off when replicated. Troy wanted "real" chocolate when in a seriously bad mood. Picard kept cases of real caviar for special occasions. I mean, it's a writing trope designed to point out that they are far away from home and play with the concept that scarcity creates value and thus is interesting to human(oid)s. The ideals of a moneyless society by virtue of just b…

But diamonds aren’t a store of value at all; they have very little resale value.

That's a bit reductive. Retail diamonds are usually priced on their size and the maker of the jewelry that surrounds them. There are investment grade diamonds, but as the article "Diamonds are Bullshit" that is currently at the top of HN[1] illustrates, appraisers sometimes deviate by 100% on that estimate. However if you buy a $7000 ring from Tiffany and walk out the store to a buyer and can get $1000, it is still storing value. It's just an extremely depreciating resource and unstable. It has value, it stores value, it just fucking sucks at it. If you can find another sucker to pull one over on like the retail shop just did to you, then it holds it fine.

I mean, I think I covered all of that pretty well but yeah, to stay it's not a store of value at all just because it's a bad investment is inaccurate.

[1] https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bulls...

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#217

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Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#218

Post by bitmapbrother » Wed, May 30, 2018, 5:09 AM UTC

acchow wrote: post #33

De Beers hasn't admitted defeat. They've pivoted strategies. "De Beers launched a new jewelry brand on Tuesday [...] The brand, called 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," Genius attack from marketing.

A diamond is forever was a brilliant marketing campaign. This, however, is condescending and an insult to the intelligence of their customers. Synthetic diamonds have the same chemical and physical properties as natural diamonds with virtually no flaws. In other words, it's actually better than the real thing.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#219

Post by briandear » Wed, May 30, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #96

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

GMO are a very powerful technology. Like anything powerful, an intelligent person calls for caution. A lot of people are worrying about GMO in food because we don't have enough data about them. We are changing things that could have important biological, health and ecological impacts, but the companies producing them are not willing to test them extensively for safety during 20 years before selling them. We don't kno…

I trust governments less than companies because governments have thousands of years of history attesting to their ability to commit genocide based on ideology. Governments have killed millions because of ideas! Companies don’t have an incentive to kill their customers. And, a free market leads to people being able to choose to buy things from companies they like or refusing to buy dangerous products. People rarely have a choice in their government. Governments are inflicted upon people without a lot of power to stop them; companies can die relatively easily if they aren’t serving their customers.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#220

Post by jjeaff » Wed, May 30, 2018, 5:15 AM UTC

adrianratnapala wrote: post #110

Iv wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> man-made diamonds are much more likely to be purer and flawless. Hmm, both natural and man-made stones have price/quality trade-offs. I am no expert in the field, but I think both kinds are post-sorted into quality grades based on what flaws are found. And I guess labs can also tune their growth parameters for different trade-offs. So yes, for a given price and size, the artificial stone will have better quality --…

That's actually not my understanding. I have heard that most man-made stones are nearly flawless (at least when it comes to occlusions).

Some processes have actually started introducing "fake" occlusions just to make them impossible to distinguish from the natural variety.