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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

#331

Post by [deleted] »

Borealid wrote: post #285
oblio wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Platinum is a boring metal, visually, difficult to distinguish by eye from steels, aluminum, and titanium. Platinum has very low reactivity so it doesn't rust, corrode, whatever easy, unlike the others. That's why it's considered valuable, because it looks almost the same after a lot of time.

Anodized aluminum and titanium don't rust - and if by whatever means you DO allow them to oxidize, the oxygen-bound outer layer forms a protective barrier against further rusting. Neither of those metals becomes structurally weaker in any meaningful way over time due to oxygen exposure.

[deleted]

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#332

Post by mromanuk »

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…

new generations, probably, would appreciate the low environmental impact of man made stones

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#333

Post by DINKDINK »

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…

Epistemologically, it can never be proven that a clone perfectly replicates an original. It can only be proven that a clone perfectly replicates the original in the dimensions you’ve analyzed (inductive process).

Exactly why a model will never replicate reality.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#334

Post by dreamfactored »

dreamfactored wrote: post #114
toomuchtodo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one thought it was viable considering the resources of the Da Beers cartel. In hindsight, they were right. I still have a small block of manufactured diamond I had made with impurities (as a proof of concept) in a box in my closet. With age comes wisdom.

Could be the timing was wrong? I'd think that an online direct to consumer model could work now with focus on social media marketing. Worst case you get bought out by De Beers if you make headway, especially now they are getting in the consumer synthetic market themselves.

btw let me know if you'd be interested in collaborating on such a thing

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#335

Post by nradov »

sametmax wrote: post #306
nradov wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specifically has Monsanto done that was unethical?

It creates seeds you can't harvest, plant and grow again to maintain a captive market. When it can't do that, it sues farmers that harvest, plan and grow the seed it wants to protect. This includes Monsanto's crops contaminating other crops like in the Vernon Hugh Bowman case. It also promoted (at least in France) round up as biodegradable but we eventually found out it didn't, and went to contaminate the drinking wa…

The Supreme Court unanimously disagreed with you on Bowman v. Monsanto so I fail to see what was unethical there. In fact Vernon Bowman intentionally violated a contract that he voluntarily entered into so it seems clear he was the unethical party.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#336

Post by syntaxing »

Diamonds are seriously overrated. I've been trying to convince all my friends to buy lab grown Moissanite instead of diamonds. People do not understand how good Moissanite looks up close in person. It looks and shines like (if not better than) diamond. I mean a hardness between 9.5 and 10 really isn't that big of a difference.I highly recommend anyone looking for an engagement ring to at least look at Moissanite in person once.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#338

Post by mkirklions »

propogandist wrote: post #75
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…

The slogan "a diamond is forever" is one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all time. It encourages people to voluntarily limit circulation of a rock that's mined by the tonnes, whose supply is carefully controlled to keep profits high. The links they've made with the slogan to love also helps keep the money flowing.

Eh, there is an obvious difference in quality between the brown diamond crumbs and clear rocks.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#339

Post by kelvin0 »

Anyone interested in the details and PR behind DeBeers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDfs54uwG9w

It's an eye opening Frontline (PBS) doc from 1994. This suggests DeBeers created an artificial diamond 'rarity' and other cultural and economic 'shenanigans' so to speak.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#340

Post by gorbachev »

Retric wrote: post #291
solatic wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real beauty of many stones is in the cut, not the base material. If you can create the exact same rough/uncut synthetic diamond, and therefore can deterministically reproduce the same cut on each diamond, then the decision of how to cut that diamond becomes intellectual property and is potentially copywritable. If de Beers really can't hold back the synthetic market, they'll find a way to take it over, and lega…

You can't get a copyright on simple geometric shapes, they would need something bizarre looking to not have been created in the past. Further, stones are both tiny and shiny so people can't really tell what they look like. A more realistic option is use nanoscale etching to get unique colors. Much like those blue butterfly wings that don't use pigment.

They could patent the process of cutting that shape though, if it's sufficiently complicated.
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