41–50 of 130 posts
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.
Maybe replace it with something that also consumes energy and produces nothing of real value. Maybe call it cryptocurrency.
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First time I've heard of moissanite, unfortunately (7 years too late). Any recommendations on a place to shop for it?
It doesn't really matter, tbh. The patent for moissanite is held by Charles and Colvard, so no matter where you shop for them they will be coming from them (and should have an authenticity certificate too, btw). Charles and Colvard has an online shop you can find by googling. No affiliation, my wife's stone is just also a moissanite.
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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.
To be fair, paying the government in taxes and royalty does not mean that the diamond is not obtained through exploitation of the local population while the corrupt officials took the money (this sometimes happened in my country). I don't really know about Botswana though, if those money actually go to the Botswanans then good for them.
Botswana is probably the best run and least corrupt country in Southern Africa (maybe all of Africa). They've never had a war of any kind, are incredibly friendly to everyone regardless of skin color, etc. etc.
They are famous for tricking the British into giving them mineral rights before they were granted independence, and have used that money wisely the benefit the local people. Huge success story, and fantastic country.
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I was fortunate enough to discover moissanite. Wife loves it, and the price was somewhere in the ballpark of 90-95% cheaper than an equivalent size diamond. The added benefit is, everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them...
I also went with moissanite. My wife (then girlfriend) was in the "2-3 months salary for a diamond" camp which I find incredibly crass. Saved $15k on the diamond by going with moissanite and spent a fraction of that on getting a nice custom ring + wedding band made by an independent local jeweler instead. I was happy to support a local craftsman rather than DeBeers & co.
That sounds like a disaster to come if she doesn't know, and she learns it by going to the jeweler to clean / repair the stone.
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Synthetic diamond will eventually become so easy the industry won't be able to supress it anymore. The collapse will be interesting, in the bloddy sense of the term I suspect.
Synthetic diamonds are not easy to produce and they take time and energy (literally). The only reason synthetics are made is because the price of real diamonds help prop up the price of artificial ones. If the market collapses, as you predict, than artificial diamonds don’t become economical to create any more. My prediction: new mines will continue to be found and real diamonds will have the same market hold they ha…
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> everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t yet felt the need to correct them It also avoids conversations that have few good outcomes. Tell someone who spent $$$$ on a diamond that you think diamonds are a waste of money or a humanitarian disaster, and it's not a great way to start a conversation. There are also other colored stones that I think are nicer looking than diamonds, but moissanite provides a nice way…
Synthetic diamond will eventually become so easy the industry won't be able to supress it anymore. The collapse will be interesting, in the bloddy sense of the term I suspect.
Really cool history. Thanks for sharing this. 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.
>The actual work felt like it provided no real value to society A sign of a broken system that needs urgent repair. Most financial jobs, hft, adtech jobs... We have our best minds working on things that do not provide any useful value to society. This is not a good state of affairs.
Is it possible to artificially create diamonds so that they have defects which make them slightly blue in colour?
Big rocks on a finger make the person seem needy and insecure. Like I need this big flashy thing is proof of my worth.