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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

#411

Post by gowld »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #402
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…

This reminds me of the story about how Coke launched an intentionally bad competitor to "Crystal Pepsi" in order to confuse the marketplace. http://11points.com/coke-made-intentionally-terrible-clear-c... The strategy is called Kamikaze marketing... and can result in fantastic stories like this, but it is almost never successful. Unfortunately I think DeBeers might have the ability to pull it off.

That story is one executive's excuse for why his product idea failed.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#412

Post by gowld »

jypepin wrote: post #248
artellectual wrote: post #232

My wife and I got married without buying a diamond ring. I simply refused to spend money in things that are overvalued by the market because some marketing scheme was so strong that it made facts look silly. I told her that I refuse to spend money on things that cause other people pain. Especially when there is no guarantee that the diamond we buy are not blood diamond. Instead we invested our money in buying things…

I just got engaged a few months ago and did not buy a ring. My fiancée didn't want one (she prefers more discreet rings) and I was happy not to pay for such a marketing schemes. I was very surprised at how everyone were pretty shocked, be it our parents or some of our friends (despite being open minded, modern millenials). Gotta give credits to the marketing firm that did this whole thing, it might be the biggest mar…

You got a good mate, mate.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#413

Post by merinowool »

CydeWeys wrote: post #391
merinowool wrote: post #316

Excuse me my ignorance, but could you bury lab grown diamonds deep in the earth (company back garden) and then mine them few weeks later, so that you can tell these were pulled from the earth?

The difference between the two is the flaws within the diamond itself (natural diamonds have more). Burying a diamond doesn't do anything to it; the difference dates back to its formation. Now if you're burying the synthetic diamond hundreds of miles deep, where the pressure is high enough to create diamonds from scratch, then you might be into something.

If it was not possible to make diamond in the lab, ideally clean ones would be presumably most expensive?

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#414

Post by marcosdumay »

skykooler wrote: post #389
sandworm101 wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the 80s but only tiny or imperfect stones. The true diamond age is when we can make large structural things with diamonds. Imagine an aircraft wing made from a honeycomb of diamond rather than aluminum.

Diamond is a very poor structural material. It is very hard, but also quite brittle; it breaks easily, is heavy, and is flammable. Additionally, airplane wings specifically need to be flexible to absorb turbulence (like the suspension system on a car), while diamond is very stiff.

It's brittle, but very strong. So strong that the brittleness is irrelevant for a huge number of applications, because you simply won't push them far enough. It will usually sustain more load than the same weight of aluminum.

About flammability... Technically it is flammable. If you heat it enough, it will react with oxygen. Steel will melt way before that point, I would be it would burn before that point too.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#415

Post by Retric »

riffic wrote: post #395
Retric wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term

Even that graph is on the low side for corporate projects. Just include a few teenagers in the process and push the expected lifetime up another 40 years.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#416

Post by CydeWeys »

merinowool wrote: post #413
CydeWeys wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between the two is the flaws within the diamond itself (natural diamonds have more). Burying a diamond doesn't do anything to it; the difference dates back to its formation. Now if you're burying the synthetic diamond hundreds of miles deep, where the pressure is high enough to create diamonds from scratch, then you might be into something.

If it was not possible to make diamond in the lab, ideally clean ones would be presumably most expensive?

Higher quality natural diamonds still are the most expensive.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#417

Post by cookiecaper »

packet_nerd wrote: post #348
astura wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same here, going on 10 years of marriage. We bought very cheap rings (I understand the value of an heirloom that symbolizes one's progenitor's marriage. Presumably, that is how the ring tradition originated, and why the durability of diamond is a significant selling point for that use case. But I don't think rings are well-suited to this purpose now and would rather leave some other trinket behind, well aware that the true legacy of the progenitors lives on through the posterity.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#418

Post by nradov »

sametmax wrote: post #399
nradov wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. US law is pretty much in line with the national consensus on ethics (although perhaps not with your personal ethics). There are occasional discrepancies but when the national consensus undergoes major shifts the laws are usually revised accordingly within a few decades.

US people can't remotely agree on death penalty, marijuana usage, gun control, gay support, the church, abortion, war, trump or snowden. In a country where it's legal to openly give money to politicians, spy on all citizens and by pass habeas corpus. I really doubt your statement.

So you agree with me that there are no clear universal ethical standards in some areas. You still haven't shown how Monsanto's actions were unethical.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#419

Post by kd0amg »

dalbasal wrote: post #261
jarito wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wouldn't jump to any such conclusions. De Beers has spent the last 100+ years controlling the diamond industry's economics in it's entirety, from mining (via such contracts) to retail. They even invented the diamond engagement ring tradition, as we know it today. De Beers are most active on the wholesale side, where they control supply (and when they can, demand) to maintain stable, high "prices." ...That's why the…

Hasn't neoclassical economics been adapting supply/demand reasoning to markets without perfect competition for quite a long time though?

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#420

Post by SquareWheel »

sametmax wrote: post #302
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…

> Why would "traditional" crops going through random mutations be any safer Time and scale. We just had more time to check it out. > highly tested mutations Highly tested for being economically sound. That's all. > It isn't a mysterious process - it's science Nobody said it was mysterious. Read the comment again. We are not against progress. Quoting Rabelais, "science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul".…

>Time and scale. We just had more time to check it out.

Random mutations don't follow a pattern. They're random. You can't look at the past history and say "Yep look fine to me".

>Highly tested for being economically sound. That's all.

Complete nonsense. GMOs are studied extensively for their nutrition, allergens, toxicity, and virtually every other metric under the sun.

This testing is a requirement of the FDA. "Economics" has nothing to do with it, and you're just throwing out Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt to try and discredit it.

>The testing process needs to be improved.

Where has it failed? There has not been a single allergen introduced in any GMO approved for human consumption. The same can not be said for non-GMOs.

>We already produce more food than we need.

So it's a solved problem and no new technology is needed, right?

People are still dying. GMOs are the only method that have allowed us to keep up with the problem at all.

>And GMO sellers have no interest in solving human problems

Food shortages and malnourishment aren't "human problems"? GMOs like Golden Rice have been engineered specifically to solve this human problem. GMOs allow farmers to produce the same yields in less farmland, reducing the environmental impact of agriculturalization.

>Again, it's a matter of agenda.

Consider your own agenda. Are you arguing from a position of scientific evidence, or one based on a distrust of corporation?

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