Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a joke. Here’s me mum: https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm
Where was she from?
It’s in the eulogy. Her parents were scouse.
Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
271–280 of 511 posts
Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
#272I'm planning on buying an engagement ring very soon and my own plan (as someone who has never done this before!) is to get a good lab grown diamond but spend more money on the metal in the ring. You can make a gem stone in a lab but until we become a Kardashev II civilization we won't be making any sufficient quantity of gold in a lab. If I buy a good loose lab grown diamond will I be able to find someone who will fi…
I would ask your soon-to-be wife whether she'd be ok with a lab grown diamond vs a natural (and let her come to her own conclusion without mansplaining to her that only morons would prefer naturals).
Some women would honestly prefer a 0.5-1.0ct natural vs a 2.5ct synthetic.
In any case, the ring is for her, so I'd recommend making sure she's on board with what you're thinking.
Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like some people want to pay more money. Good for them. I'm happy to have a cheaper option.
The whole point is to spend money and to be an honest signal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory In the event artificial diamonds are genuinely indistinguishable from natural ones they will all, natural and artificial, become worthless aside from practical applications.
But even that surely is less useful these days?
In the west we're no longer living in a time where most people get married and then start their lives together. People often cohabit for years before marriage, and with more women working and earning as well the "hey I've got money and I'm dedicating a chunk to you!" signal isn't so much of a thing.
Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
#274And yet natural diamonds are still as expensive as ever. There's still enough of a market for "the real thing", and even if demand were to drop somewhat, the cartel can still artificially keep prices high.
Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
They never had any value, apart from specialized ie glass cutting tool. Only when DeBeers realized they could push some fictious heavy marketing 'to prove your worth to woman you are asking to marry' for those shiny stones nobody wanted to buy, people who didn't know better got manipulated into buying them. They are supposedly very common in universe, and probably in deeper Earth too. Correction is healthy and benefi…
>They never had any value They had immense value in ancient world. They were valued much more than gold - due to their rarity. Southern India was the only known source for mining diamonds in ancient world [1]. They were used as currency and was valued higher than gold. In fact there were wars fought for diamonds. There is a saying about Koh-i-Noor, one of the most famous Diamond - "If a strong man were to throw four…
Good quality sapphires, rubies and emeralds are rarer and in some parts of history were considered more valuable. They’re not hyped to the extent that diamonds have been in the last 100 years.
Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Veblen good.
Because synthetic diamonds are indistinguishable to the naked eye (IIRC a trained eye with a magnifying glass can spot faint nitrogen impurities which are characteristic of natural diamonds) the thing you're really paying for is the piece of paper, the certificate. You're not really paying for carbon allotrope. So it's less like gold which is fungible and a more natural form of money. Diamonds feel more like an NFT..…
While yes, you are literally paying for the certificate, what you're really paying for is propagandized emotion.
The diamond cartel did a great job equating "real", mined diamonds with love and romance. For some couples, unfortunately, lab-grown just doesn't have the same feel to it.
Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
#277Over the past 10 years, there has been an explosion in cheap lab diamond and moissanite producers in China and India. 10 years ago, it was hard to find quality lab diamonds at a reasonable price, and moissanite was still reasonably expensive at $400-600/ct. Today, given cutthroat competition and "race to the bottom" pricing strategies, lab diamonds are ubiquitous, extremely high quality, and cheap. Less than $200/ct…
How big can you get? Do they make olive sized ones (1-2 cm diameter)? How much would such one cost?
They make 150mm wafers in quantity, up to a couple mm thick, but I don't see why they shouldn't be about to go olive thick. Other than the slow growth, that is; I think it might take a couple months to grow optical grade that thick.
Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
Women expect it. It's that simple.
Hmm that sounds a bit shallow and materialistic tbh. But I have to say I'm an outlier anyway, I've never been married and I prefer polyamorous relationships. And I've never had real money to speak of. So I'm not really the right type. I do know the families with a big house and fancy dinner parties with Sunday silverware. But I tend to stay away from those settings :) I don't fit in and I don't even own a suit or dre…
> Hmm that sounds a bit shallow and materialistic tbh.
It is. But the diamond cartel's marketing (at least in the US, I won't speak for other countries) has been so good since well before I was born that diamond = love, romance, relationship, marriage. For many, many, many people, there's an inextricable link between the two.
It's super lame. But it's how it is. Hopefully that's already changing.
Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
#279> Defense Department were more sympathetic to high-risk proposals, ‘especially if they included, “The Russians are doing it”’.
It’s amazing how much science and technology has progressed due to adversarial competitive pressure.
With Putin running Russia to the ground, that pressure is much lower.
Would US have ever gone to space if there wasn’t a race, or got into nuclear if the Nazis weren’t doing it?
Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined
#280> A perfectly cut, flawless lab diamond costs a fraction of the price of a mined diamond of lesser quality. When I shopped for an engagement ring in 2012, there was a clear cohort of women who significantly valued a diamond from the ground. Fortunately, my (now) wife and I saw through the marketing gimmick, and laughed all the way to the bank.
I'm genuinely curious why you bought a diamond at all then? Isn't the diamond itself a marketing gimmick, or do you and your wife honestly find them more beautiful than other stones?