11–20 of 130 posts
I still wish I'd discovered Moissanite before I got married. The rock would have been multiples larger and I'd have the satisfaction of not contributing to a monopolistic and exploitative industry.
The right way to shake this industry would be to obliterate it completely. Finding another useless piece of glass and selling it for $$$ is not shaking anything.
Society would have to work to convince people that status symbols are not worth pursuing. Unfortunately, based on my experience of how people’s brains work, that is quite an uphill battle.
On this note, a book recommendation: The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions.
Thorsten Veblen, 1899.
More relevant now than ever. From Wikipedia, a short summary:
> a treatise on economics and a detailed, social critique of conspicuous consumption, as a function of social class and of consumerism, derived from the social stratification of people and the division of labour, which are social institutions of the feudal period that have continued to the modern era.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Clas...
I believe he coined the phrase Conspicuous Consumption.
My father was a diamond cutter (one of the folk who designed the modern “Portuguese cut” of the 70s) and he went through the evolution of diamond cutting from abrasion with copper disks (for cutting windows and facets) to laser cuts. I distinctly remember going into the (then state-owned) workshops as a kid and watching the cutters at work with their loupes, and how they kept tabs on stones by checking in and out of…
I remember a few dinner conversations about how a few of them came to my father to assess the value of those stones, and most were chunks of quartz or other worthless crystals.
I think some of those conversations were really tough, and one of the reasons he disconnected from work as much as he could (his hobby was electronics, and one of the reasons I got into computers was that he brought a Sinclair ZX81 from London after years of putting together various kits, including a HeathKit oscilloscope).
So, in a way, diamonds are the reason I do what I do these days.
We should crowdfund a PR campaign that diamonds are synonyms for death and exploitation, and it’s more humane for “any gem but a diamond”. A $10 million campaign or so, targeting youth especially, can have tremendous impacts on future generations.
Is it possible to artificially create diamonds so that they have defects which make them slightly blue in colour?
I can imagine if you "know the truth" about the business you're in you might want to get out. I felt like that about certain financial jobs I've had in the past. The actual work felt like it provided no real value to society, but the intellectual challenges were what kept me there.
I still wish I'd discovered Moissanite before I got married. The rock would have been multiples larger and I'd have the satisfaction of not contributing to a monopolistic and exploitative industry.
The right way to shake this industry would be to obliterate it completely. Finding another useless piece of glass and selling it for $$$ is not shaking anything.
Society would have to work to convince people that status symbols are not worth pursuing. Unfortunately, based on my experience of how people’s brains work, that is quite an uphill battle.
We should crowdfund a PR campaign that diamonds are synonyms for death and exploitation, and it’s more humane for “any gem but a diamond”. A $10 million campaign or so, targeting youth especially, can have tremendous impacts on future generations.
Except the diamonds discussed in the article are from Botswana, where the article states "the firm paid the Botswanan government eighty-five million dollars in taxes, and nearly thirty million in royalties, on profits of about a hundred and eighty-five million." Seems pretty good deal for the Botswanans.
I don't really know about Botswana though, if those money actually go to the Botswanans then good for them.