Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems • Hacker News Board

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#311

Post by kalcode » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #169

kalcode wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel like diamonds are such a great example for the 'a free-market' people. They typically argue that in a truly free-market everything is better. Well diamond trade exists largely in a free market until it hits some of the countries they sell in but before that we basically have blood being spilt over them and companies existing outside of strong regulated countries to funnel the diamonds into and control the price.…

I hate comments like these. You could have used this as an argument against the free market in general, but instead you tried to turn it into some us-vs-them tribalistic debate punctuated with an appeal to emotion. It's the lowest form of dialog crafted only to rowdy up people, split them into two extremes, and pit them against each other.

Free market as an economic model really isn't considered acceptable in a laissez-faire approach. So I would have attacked 'free market' and people respond with 'economist don't actually believe a true free-market would work well in today modern world.'

Instead I attack the ones that are actually driving to make policies that reflect a 'free-market', deregulate and push the ideology. Those are the ones pushing for an unreasonable policies.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#312

Post by kalcode » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

ameister14 wrote: post #113

kalcode wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel like diamonds are such a great example for the 'a free-market' people. They typically argue that in a truly free-market everything is better. Well diamond trade exists largely in a free market until it hits some of the countries they sell in but before that we basically have blood being spilt over them and companies existing outside of strong regulated countries to funnel the diamonds into and control the price.…

A truly free market requires complete transparency, something the diamond market has historically lacked.

In a truly free-market who would enforce this 'transparency'?

That is the whole point against it, no one would enforce it.

You say the people would but would they? Would they care? People in the US know about 'blood' diamonds, heck a movie came out with an extremely famous cast and helped get lots of people aware of the dirty trade of diamonds.

Diamonds still sell extremely well. Banking on the common person to push for transparency and help improve the market by not 'supporting' these diamonds doesn't work already. They know about diamonds trade and people still constantly buy them.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#313

Post by caconym_ » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

Jedd wrote: post #308

caconym_ wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for Dan Simmons and especially Hyperion. It is more what I'd call "science fantasy" in my personal classification system, but it's an amazing book, in my top 5 for sure.

Thank you both for the recommendation - Hyperion's now queued up on my ebook. Sounds like the first pair of novels are more highly regarded than the second pair?

I think if I had to rank them I'd say Hyperion is top-tier, the sort of book I can quote from even years after reading it. The others are merely excellent sci-fi novels. I don't know how I'd rank the second book against the last two; they're fairly different and I enjoyed them all.

Re: Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

#314

Post by nvarsj » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 8:44 AM UTC

caconym_ wrote: post #313

Jedd wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you both for the recommendation - Hyperion's now queued up on my ebook. Sounds like the first pair of novels are more highly regarded than the second pair?

I think if I had to rank them I'd say Hyperion is top-tier, the sort of book I can quote from even years after reading it. The others are merely excellent sci-fi novels. I don't know how I'd rank the second book against the last two; they're fairly different and I enjoyed them all.

Hyperion is the best of the books in my opinion. One of my favorite books of all time. The Endymion books are a different story set in the same universe, and can be skipped if you want.