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

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#341

Post by xienze » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:01 PM UTC

mkirklions wrote: post #338

propogandist wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They scoop up tons of the gem-quality diamonds as well. OP is correct about how the industry operates. This is a great article (from 1982!) that goes into great depth about the diamond scam:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#342

Post by jimhefferon » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:09 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #295

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…

Gem-quality synthetic diamonds are cut in essentially the same way as natural diamonds. The most important commercial cut (the brilliant) was described in Marcel Tolowsky's 1919 book Diamond Design , so would not be copyrightable without some tremendous legal gymnastics. De Beers could dream up some "improvement" to the brilliant cut and trademark it, but there really isn't much room for improvement. The cut that Tol…

> tremendous legal gymnastics

I'm with you so far.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#343

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

lopmotr wrote: post #223

dragonwriter wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The tribalism goes both ways. Sadly, it's hard to be a pragmatic optimist and say "Yea it's probably going to change but there's also nothing we can do about it without killing millions of people through economic destruction and we'll likely adapt anyway (humans can adapt their civilizations in the time scales of climate change - see the rapid growth of Chinese cities), so let's not worry too much." Then everyone see…

> Sadly, it's hard to be a pragmatic optimist and say "Yea it's probably going to change but there's also nothing we can do about it without killing millions of people through economic destruction and we'll likely adapt anyway (humans can adapt their civilizations in the time scales of climate change - see the rapid growth of Chinese cities), so let's not worry too much."

That's not really pragmatic optimism, it's intense pessimism about human capability to adapt society deliberately in the face of a changing knowledge of economic payoff matrices without mass destruction mixed with bizarre faith that human society will adapt to changing payoff matrices without mass dedtruction.

There's no difference in the behavior that supports than denialism, the only real difference is that denialism is, for all its lack of grounding in reality, at least more self-consistent.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#344

Post by ksherlock » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

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…

That question is active here, too; What color are your bits? (Those bits look evergreen to me.)

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#345

Post by praptak » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:16 PM 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…

Protecting the price of a product by selling its cheap substitute? Sounds pretty dumb to me.

Hedging sounds like a more sensible explanation.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#346

Post by markatkinson » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:18 PM 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…

My exact thoughts, this statement made me chuckle: 'Synthetic diamonds, which can be produced in about 500 hours, share the same physical, chemical and optical characteristics as natural stones. But they are not nearly as valuable.'

So... the two items are identical in every possible way that matters except in the way that lines De Beers pockets?

It almost feels like De Beers sponsored this article in a desperate campaign to make dirty mined diamonds more valuable.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#347

Post by komodo » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:34 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #300

colanderman wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I've seen lots of marketing spam on my elevator's "Captivate" box "educating" viewers on colored diamonds and how "natural" impurities make them that way. Very obvious ploy to increase the desirability of mined diamonds.

Off topic, but I'm not sure I got this -- you have advertisements in an elevator ?

Yes, we also have these screens in our office elevators. They show the weather, pictures of office views better than yours, and ads. I find the brand name "Captivate" depressingly accurate since you are trapped in a box with it.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#348

Post by packet_nerd » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #303

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.

She's better off holding onto them because selling the won't actually net you "a bunch of money upfront," the resale market for diamond rings is incredibly poor. Personally, I just didn't even bother buying an engagement ring (or wedding ring for that matter) because it's a "tradition" that means literally absolutely nothing to me. My husband doesn't care that I don't want jewelry and he prefers to not wear a wedding…

Ha, I thought we were the only ones. My wife and I have never worn our rings as it just seemed stupid and also I found it uncomfortable.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#349

Post by snarf21 » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:47 PM 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…

Obviously they will fight to keep their monopoly and protect their cache.

Just like lab grown meat is gaining traction, I think synthetic companies have the ability to push the social angle. "Identical in composition to the diamonds mined by slaves and used to finance terrorism." Just need an English major to turn that into a catchy slogan! :)

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#350

Post by Retric » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

gorbachev wrote: post #340

Retric wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Patents last for 20 years and can be invalidated or worked around. Copyright is ~forever.