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South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

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Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#141

Post by metalman »

willsmith72 wrote: post #51
hn_submit wrote: post #48

The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks. They wanted to differentiate between natural and lab-grown versions with the former being much more expensive. But that train has left the station since there's little to no difference in quality between the two. In fact, I once predicted there'd be huge scams where lab-grown ones would be repackaged and sold a…

> there's little to no difference in quality between the two Lab grown can be way better quality. To me it was a no-brainer considering the ethical concerns, then add in the cost difference. The only argument I've heard for natural is "I like the imperfections". Sounds like brainwashing to me. They're chemically identical The mining industry should die

China. A recent look on alibaba showed a warehouse with row after row of new diamond foundrys, big ugly and cheap ones, but that has no effect on the quality of diamonds and other precsios stones they are making.

As to the mining industry, it is dying, again, China. Electric mining equipment is bieng introduced at a ferocios rate, and has contributed the largest share to Chinas astonishing 9% reduction in oil use so far this year, and an equaly astonishing reduction in CO2, in spite of an increase in overall energy use.Mad, fully fucking mad good news.

Here in Canada the copper mine in Sudbury just went all electric, and a significant amount of the steel in the electric mining equipment is carbon free through a Volvo subsidiary.

There is talk now that electrification/solar is pushing ahead so fast that we have actualy passed peak oil durring this episode in the oil wars and that oil will experience a demand collapse.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#142

Post by Paradigma11 »

bastawhiz wrote: post #84
BurningFrog wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would describe it at showing how poor/unproductive the rest of Botswana's economy is. Or is the theory here that De Beers somehow keeps the part of the Botswanian economy they don't participate in poor/unproductive?

De Beers was founded by the guy whose colonial governance helped make the region as economically depressed as it was. When Debswana was founded, De Beers was taking something like 85% of the profits from Botswana's natural resources. That's like if I burned your house and farm down, then a few later I discovered oil on your land and offered to help you drill for it in exchange for a little over an eighth of the profi…

How much profit did Botswana generate of its natural resources before Debswana was founded?

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#143

Post by lawlorino »

kstrauser wrote: post #57
willsmith72 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's little to no difference in quality between the two Lab grown can be way better quality. To me it was a no-brainer considering the ethical concerns, then add in the cost difference. The only argument I've heard for natural is "I like the imperfections". Sounds like brainwashing to me. They're chemically identical The mining industry should die

I personally find lab grown much more beautiful, in that they’re an amazing accomplishment of mankind’s science and technology. So a tree got squeezed underground until it turned into a crystal? Cool, I guess, but big deal. Humans learned enough about how matter works to recreate those conditions at industrial scale? That’s amazing! I’d much rather wear a monument to our cleverness than a dinosaur mashed under a rock…

> So a tree got squeezed underground until it turned into a crystal? Cool, I guess, but big deal.

In fairness, this is actually pretty cool

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#144

Post by aziaziazi »

nkrisc wrote: post #45
wonderwonder wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, as long as it's meat. Lab grown meat from cells is meat. The reason impossible never worked was becuase it wasn't meat. Very few people are going to trade meat for soy and vegetables

Even though I do eat meat I still enjoy black bean burger patties far more than Impossible because a black bean patty is tasty in its own way and not trying to replicate meat. A black bean patty or similar is a tasty bit of food that works well in a burger form. I like meat but not every meal I eat needs to have meat in it. Give me tasty (and cheaper) alternatives to meat and I’ll eat them in place of meat sometimes.

Where do you find those patties ? If you haven’t, recommend you to try tempeh as well, works very well in burgers but in everything else as well. Quite easy to find in big cities where I live but HN crowd often talk about those beans patties and I don’t see them in shops.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#145

Post by aziaziazi »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #43
moate wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK what "never worked" means here, the market cap for Impossible/Beyond alone is still over a billion dollars. You can still get an Impossible Whopper at any Burger King in the US. There's plenty of issues with selling meat alternatives, I don't think you're the person to speak to them for some reason...

According to Google AI "The global beef industry has a total market value of approximately $465 billion to $526 billion" Impossible/Beyond barely exists in comparison

That’s a weird comparaison between one or two brand and "an industry". Let’s compare two ranch’s with… the global legumes industry !

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#146

Post by hn_submit »

Loughla wrote: post #59
bsoqk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks. Just like the luxury watches market ceased to exist when you could buy quartz watches for 10 bucks.

Except in this case, the quartz watches would be better quality than the luxury watches I'm not sure your analogy has teeth.

Mechanical watches are a luxury item where the intricate craftsmanship is highly valued, even though they're completely obsolete compared to even the simplest quartz movement.

That analogy doesn't hold for natural diamonds and the comparison therefore falls flat on its face.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#147

Post by pythonic_hell »

What isn’t mentioned here is that the reason De Beers isn’t able to sustain a monopoly anymore is because of a US anti-monopoly ruling from the 90s AND because they’re unable to monopolise the huge synthetic diamond industry that has grown in China.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#148

Post by fooker »

ozyschmozy wrote: post #140
fooker wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in history that was mass produced was priced more than an order of magnitude lower than the 'original'. I don't see artificial meat being the first exception to this. I'd see 'same price as meat' being an indication of something going wrong here.

Are you implying that the meat industry as it is currently, producing nearly 400 million tonnes of meat annually, isn't mass production? Why would we assume that lab grown meat, even if it's mass produced, would be much cheaper than that well oiled machine?

Because it wouldn't involve handling live animals, could be significantly more automated, would not need as much real estate, would eliminate wastage of the parts we don't really consume, could be done at larger scales in a more centralized way where energy is cheaper, the stages could be pipelined with processing/packing/etc happening at the same place.

I'm sure there are a dozen other reasons I didn't immediately think of.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#149

Post by bluefirebrand »

aziaziazi wrote: post #145
bluefirebrand wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Google AI "The global beef industry has a total market value of approximately $465 billion to $526 billion" Impossible/Beyond barely exists in comparison

That’s a weird comparaison between one or two brand and "an industry". Let’s compare two ranch’s with… the global legumes industry !

On the topic of replacing meat with fake meat, yeah it kind of does invite comparison, because they are essentially entirely competing industries at that point

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#150

Post by nkrisc »

aziaziazi wrote: post #144
nkrisc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though I do eat meat I still enjoy black bean burger patties far more than Impossible because a black bean patty is tasty in its own way and not trying to replicate meat. A black bean patty or similar is a tasty bit of food that works well in a burger form. I like meat but not every meal I eat needs to have meat in it. Give me tasty (and cheaper) alternatives to meat and I’ll eat them in place of meat sometimes.

Where do you find those patties ? If you haven’t, recommend you to try tempeh as well, works very well in burgers but in everything else as well. Quite easy to find in big cities where I live but HN crowd often talk about those beans patties and I don’t see them in shops.

Truthfully, it’s very hard to find them these days, in my experience. Around 2005-2015 they seemed to be everywhere and were tasty options on their own merits. Every once in a while I’ll still find them in the grocery store but it’s hard.

These days all I can find in groceries stores is various “plant protein” meat-wannabes.

I do make tempeh from time to time, but the flavor just isn’t quite right for me. It’s good, but not my preferred option.

Fortunately a black bean burger is not hard to make at home.

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