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Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#71

Post by simonh »

Nursie wrote: post #35

Good for them. It's literally the same material, and we can now use scientific and engineering advances to remove the need for people to toil and die underground to get them. Hopefully the process is more environmentally friendly too. They are real diamonds. I find it hi-goddamned-larious that the moment these became viable, the industry switched from "Diamond purity is the be-all and end-all and you must have the cl…

If the best option available to people was diamond mining, by taking that away from them we’re by definition pushing them into an even worse option. That’s a big problem I have with a lot of the do-good commentary on developing world labour. Taking away options from people, even bad ones from our point of view, isn’t necessarily doing them any favours. None of these peoples options are going to look good to us. Actually helping these people means improving their existing options, or giving them new better ones.

Having said that, I think given the other pretty grievous activities associated with the diamond trade, this is probably a good move. They’re not called blood diamonds for nothing.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#72

Post by canadianfella »

rodgerd wrote: post #61
goldcd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side though, is that you're making diamond miners unemployed. I suspect if they had alternate employment opportunities available that were more pleasant/better-paying, they'd have already taken them. So losers are the poor folks digging in the ground and winners are the companies who've just built themselves a lab. Maybe a way out of this, would be price up the grown diamonds to include a charitable donation…

> I suspect if they had alternate employment opportunities available that were more pleasant/better-paying, they'd have already taken them. Spoken like someone who thinks that mining is conducted by volunteers.

Employees.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#73

Post by hellbannedguy »

cyberpunk wrote: post #3

Married members of HN, what did you do if you think diamonds are utterly ridiclious however due to societal constraints some kind of ring is required for your SO?

Synthetic stone with microscopic laser etching, "I had a feeling?" on the girdle. (I'm so romantic? Don't be like me.)

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#74

Post by [deleted] »

tda wrote: post #63
intsunny wrote: post #21

I wonder how well this Reddit-famous commentary about the diamond industry has aged: https://reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8pb8d5/i_grow_diamonds_i_...

There was an article the other day that talked about the resale value of diamonds. Basically jewelers refuse to buy back diamonds at any reasonable price (compared to original retail value. And refuse to make new rings with old diamond etc. So there is very little market for second hand diamonds. Sounds like a business ready to be disrupted Edit: Found the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/fashion/jewelry-d…

[deleted]

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#75

Post by The_rationalist »

Off-topic: Nylene blue made a video where he transform (serendipitously) glass beads to very beautiful "jowels" through supracritical impacts. I wonder if this paradigm has been tried for jewels and if it could make more interesting lab grown diamonds.

https://youtu.be/JslxPjrMzqY

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#76

Post by Nursie »

simonh wrote: post #71
Nursie wrote: post #35

Good for them. It's literally the same material, and we can now use scientific and engineering advances to remove the need for people to toil and die underground to get them. Hopefully the process is more environmentally friendly too. They are real diamonds. I find it hi-goddamned-larious that the moment these became viable, the industry switched from "Diamond purity is the be-all and end-all and you must have the cl…

If the best option available to people was diamond mining, by taking that away from them we’re by definition pushing them into an even worse option. That’s a big problem I have with a lot of the do-good commentary on developing world labour. Taking away options from people, even bad ones from our point of view, isn’t necessarily doing them any favours. None of these peoples options are going to look good to us. Actua…

I think that we shouldn't keep funding exploitative companies that treat people badly, and industries that are dangerous for workers and environmentally damaging. I think that's a win anyway.

Here's another take - able bodied workers are less likely to be sucked into an industry which digs up shiny rocks to send overseas, and may be able to take up something of more benefit to the local economy.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#77

Post by Kye »

rodgerd wrote: post #66
Nursie wrote: post #35

Good for them. It's literally the same material, and we can now use scientific and engineering advances to remove the need for people to toil and die underground to get them. Hopefully the process is more environmentally friendly too. They are real diamonds. I find it hi-goddamned-larious that the moment these became viable, the industry switched from "Diamond purity is the be-all and end-all and you must have the cl…

See also: the return of vinyl. Tube amplifiers. Yellow lighting. All from people arguing that poor reproduction of audio and natural light is superior!

The vinyl thing is ironic because the reason it sounds better is that it's such a horrible medium that only highly skilled production sounds right on it. Your half hour bedroom mix won't cut it.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#78

Post by alias_neo »

trapexit wrote: post #39
TekMol wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: Why marry in the first place? Why practice a personal relationship in a way others have designed? Isn't it somewhat contrary to the theme of Hacker News? To me, the term "hacking" describes the habit of doing things in a more interesting/efficient/fun way than how they are usually done.

This is kind of a lazyweb question because the "why marriage?" question has been discussed many times before on HN. https://www.google.com/search?q=marriage+site%3Anews.ycombin... Beyond the social convention that "it's the thing to do" at a certain point in a relationship, some reasons are: - Marriage provides financial assurance for a spouse who will defer their career to raise children. - Some friends and family (…

So, although the question-asker is being downvoted, your response does actually cover interesting discussion topics, and to summarise, the answer could be that the systems and conventions need to change?

- I believe in the UK (where I live) one has all of the legal and financial implications automatically when a relationship reaches a certain age (3 years I believe). Legally you would be treated the same way as if you were married.

- Friends and family; My family certainly feel this way, my wife's I'm not sure. I'm "mixed"-culture/race/etc so some of my family have different cultural views. My wife and I don't feel strongly either way about how our children deal with this when they grow up, so perhaps our (millenial) generation is changing the "social" side of it already?

- Legally I believe you have all of the rights you describe, however, it may be more difficult to prove the relationship without a piece of paper. We've had to present our marriage certificate for various things relating to our child(ren) for example.

- It _should_ have no effect on your ability to purchase a home in the UK

- There is a tax benefit for low income couples in the UK, but I believe our law doesn't specify "married".

- I don't know how any of this affects UK citizens abroad as I've never looked into it.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#79

Post by simias »

chrisseaton wrote: post #31
croo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not op, but yes. Engagement traditionally is giving a ring to your desired future wife. I don't understand your point. Of course you can ignore tradition but then why marry in the first place?

I mean who is it unacceptable to? Who complains if you don't have a ring and what do they do about it? If someone told me they thought it was unacceptable that I didn't have a ring I'd laugh at them.

The conversation is framed from the point of view of tradition in some parts of the world. Of course the cops won't arrest you if you decide not to get an engagement ring. It's like going to work in flip flops, it's not illegal, just frowned upon in many circles.

These faux-intellectual "I'm a robot, beep boop I don't understand context and I parse conversations like a compiler would, semantic error on line 5" conversations are probably the least productive on this website, and they're unfortunately very common. It's not smart, it's just obtuse.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#80

Post by Nursie »

lewisflude wrote: post #70
sharken wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the concept "real diamond", as in mined the traditional way exists, then real change will be slow. It will be interesting to see if companies will try to market "real diamonds" and how the market will respond.

When you buy a mined diamond, you are paying for the story, of it being a finite thing, formed in the earth over a very long period of time. Lab grown diamonds don't have that story. Separately, the work that goes into cutting/finishing diamonds is incredible and there is a huge amount of variety between individual diamonds. They are very fascinating things.

That sounds like industry apologetics, to me. I don't know that the population in general are that keen on geology.
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