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Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

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Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#501

Post by kuschku »

_yb2s wrote: post #457
kuschku wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No cover, just straight up gorilla glass victus. And it's not just key metal deposited on the screen, there are deep grooves cut into it.

I believe you, but there is some other explanation here- it warrants further investigation. You can scrape a regular glass window (about MOHS 6.5) clean with a razor blade (about MOHS 6.0) and it is impossible to scratch it, just from that tiny difference in hardness. I do this all the time, e.g. recently to get paint that my kid painted on the house windows off. Your brass keys should only be about 3.0, and gorilla…

Brass? Who said anything about brass?

Typical keys are made from nickel plated hardened steel and nickelsilver. Considering the shiny coating is long gone and the keys are ferromagnetic, I assume it's the first. The keys are certainly hard enough to scrape my glass ceramic stove.

And reports online say that gorilla glass victus is the mist scratch prone gorilla glass, scratching at or around 6 already :/

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#502

Post by kuschku »

serf wrote: post #371
kuschku wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how easy it is to break keys in the lock, I'd say they're definitely more brittle than malleable?

I think that's mostly from mild work-hardening, I haven't experienced that with a brand new key.

What kind of material are your keys and locks made from? Over here nickelsilver or nickel plated hardened steel is common for keys and a combination of brass, steel and titanium for locks.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#503

Post by GJim »

Joker_vD wrote: post #493
GJim wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Artificial diamonds, you mean. Synthetic diamonds, you mean. There is noting artificial about them! They are diamonds.

They were created by humans; therefore, "artificial", or "manufactured". Just because there is no practical way to distinguish them from the ones that appeared naturally doesn't mean they weren't created artificially. "But this is a purely philosophical difference then!" Yes, it is. Humans still take such silly differences into an account, consider e.g. replicas of artwork made by the original artist themself. Are th…

artificial != manufactured

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#504

Post by Joker_vD »

GJim wrote: post #503
Joker_vD wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were created by humans; therefore, "artificial", or "manufactured". Just because there is no practical way to distinguish them from the ones that appeared naturally doesn't mean they weren't created artificially. "But this is a purely philosophical difference then!" Yes, it is. Humans still take such silly differences into an account, consider e.g. replicas of artwork made by the original artist themself. Are th…

artificial != manufactured

Artificial: made by people, often as a copy of something natural.

To manufacture: to produce goods in large numbers, usually in a factory using machines.

Seems pretty synonymous to me. Heck, Collins dictionary [0] straight up states they're synonyms.

[0] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/artific...

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#505

Post by drjasonharrison »

ralphhughes wrote: post #492
_yb2s wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you, but there is some other explanation here- it warrants further investigation. You can scrape a regular glass window (about MOHS 6.5) clean with a razor blade (about MOHS 6.0) and it is impossible to scratch it, just from that tiny difference in hardness. I do this all the time, e.g. recently to get paint that my kid painted on the house windows off. Your brass keys should only be about 3.0, and gorilla…

I think you may be onto something here. Taking apart old machinery I have often observed that the hardened part of a shaft is worn and has a noticable groove detectable with a fingernail. However the part that rubbed on it is often much, much softer eg a rubber oil seal. My theory is that the much softer material is so soft that microscopic inclusions of something much harder (grit?) are caught in the material and th…

Cutting with a lubricant and grit is super effective. Silicon dioxide, that is sand, is everywhere.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#506

Post by viridian »

dirtdobber wrote: post #500
viridian wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing for a nihilistic worldview where one should abstain from caring about suffering and exploitation, or just calling OP a probable hypocrite? If the latter, what position do you take that isn't hypocritical?

It's pretty clear, no? Are you asking me for a non-hypocritical position on the diamond market? My position is simply that natural diamonds are a luxury item. Claiming that there's suffering involved in obtaining natural diamonds and therefore you should only purchase synthetic (non-luxury) diamonds, is a view that is inconsistent with the way most people live. Otherwise, we'd all stop buying clothes, shoes, cell pho…

Thanks for clarifying. I think this is a degenerate, self-defeating way to view your relationship to the purchases you make.

By stripping away any agency you may have and shifting both blame and responsibility onto the market, government, or other amoral greater power, you shrink yourself. You are capable of agency, even if some acts are harder than others.

In between the absolute poles of absolute moral asceticism and nihilistic indifference to suffering, is a massive spectrum. On that spectrum, blood diamonds are a very, very low hanging fruit for anyone seeking to demonstrate even the smallest shred of moral agency.

A few reasons this is so easy:

1) An alternative product exists, and is cheaper than the one produced by forced labor. You save money by not paying extra for suffering.

2) The purchase is infrequent. Unlike food or clothing, you aren't constantly required to buy more of it and thus have to research suppliers and production practices over and over.

3) The quality of the alternative is as high or higher. Unlike with any number of technology products where you are cajoled by unique feature sets and a higher level of polish that comes part and parcel with grinding through humans, lab diamonds do the main things a diamond does as well or better than the alternative. They reflect, refract, scratch, and cleave exactly as one wants them to.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#507

Post by dirtdobber »

viridian wrote: post #506
dirtdobber wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty clear, no? Are you asking me for a non-hypocritical position on the diamond market? My position is simply that natural diamonds are a luxury item. Claiming that there's suffering involved in obtaining natural diamonds and therefore you should only purchase synthetic (non-luxury) diamonds, is a view that is inconsistent with the way most people live. Otherwise, we'd all stop buying clothes, shoes, cell pho…

Thanks for clarifying. I think this is a degenerate, self-defeating way to view your relationship to the purchases you make. By stripping away any agency you may have and shifting both blame and responsibility onto the market, government, or other amoral greater power, you shrink yourself. You are capable of agency, even if some acts are harder than others. In between the absolute poles of absolute moral asceticism a…

Or, get this, I can buy a natural diamond that was ethically sourced.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#508

Post by gs17 »

kazinator wrote: post #494
kazinator wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a little hard to believe. There are resin finishes that are hard to scratch by fingernail.

Think about it; you couldn't put a fingernail scratch into a cheap soda glass beer bottle. Why would Google make a phone with glass that could be scratched by a nail, let alone easily? Does that even exist? Perhaps there is some coating on the glass you didn't remove and that's what you're scratching?

I'm sorry if you don't believe it, but it really happens. The "coating" would have to be pretty thick, this gouge was something you could easily feel with your fingertip. I was very careful to not let my keys or anything else get near it, and the gouge (which was essentially the only scratch on the otherwise flawless screen) was exactly where my thumb hits the screen.

My Pixel 4a, meanwhile, was in my pocket all the time and never got a scratch.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#509

Post by murukesh_s »

myrmidon wrote: post #382
murukesh_s wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The 5 stone gold comparison is utter BS (unless those 5 stones are like 5 stones heavy :P). All the gold available to humans on earth right now fits into a ~20m cube, and that is most certainly worth orders of magnitude more than a single diamond in a historical artifact.

Not at that time when the diamonds were mined only from one mine in the entire world for several hundreds of thousands of years.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#510

Post by ric2b »

foobarchu wrote: post #491
takinola wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious to know if there is precedent for goods losing their veblen status.

Tulips! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

That lasted less than a year, I don't think it even registered as part of the culture or tradition.
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