"what the hell's the point of a diamond if no slaves died to get it and it costs less than a starter home? Now that any one of you disgusting peasants can own one its WORTHLESS!!!"
-some asshole who works for DeBeers presumably
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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I can actually see some folks giving it value because people died for it.
Aluminum jeweleries were popular in the 19th century. Light weight and shiny like silver. Then they found a cheaper way to extract aluminum from ore. Then people started using aluminum for industrial applications, made utensils from it etc. and then nobody wanted a piece of jewelry that was made from the same material as a fork. Just wanted to share.
I believe one of France's kings had aluminum dinnerware back when it was still hard to make. Fun times.
Car company 1: would you want a BIG MANLY TRUCK made out of the same thing as a COKE CAN?! EWWW
Car company 2: you want your BIG MANLY TRUCK made out of the same thing as a FIGHTER JET! FREEDUMMMMMM!
[De Beers] stating that the economics of lab-grown diamonds for jewelry were not sustainable.
"That's cheating, we can't throttle the market of these shiny rocks! The indistinguishable ones you need are still those we're killing people for!"
I hope one day you can make a perfect gemstone for the cost of a burger, so people just stop caring about them at all.
And bling for everyone!
I see no downside here...
De Beers: we can remove the major differentiator by stabbing an enslaved person to death with each lab-grown diamond. This will make them valuable.
yeah high quality has pretty much been defined by what cannot be done in a lab to prop up de beers. Remember on how colored diamonds were a mark of low quality but once they could not stop it then suddenly its special diamond type. oooh.
wtf there are people who want to pay more for diamonds to brag about how much they paid for a shiny rock...
This wouldn't even be dumb if it weren't for the fact that diamonds have practically no significant resale value.
At least if you buy something like a gold ring, you'll know that it will be worth at least the melt value of the gold later on.
Well, that's true for pretty much any luxury brands. Look at how many people pay for the fancy "designer" clothing items and accessories with branding plastered all over it (Gucci, MK, Boss, etc), where the quality isn't any better than the "pleb" versions, and they're often more expensive than custom tailored items that'll look way better.
Vanity purchases are absolutely a thing. I'm glad my wife was cool with a relatively inexpensive ring (<$1k) and doesn't care much for jewelry in general. But the rest of her family is another story, and they love all of that vain nonsense. So instead of wasting all of our money looking rich, we're able to afford things like a home and plan for retirement.
I got my wife's ring with a synthetic diamond. It is beautiful, decently sized, fairly high standard in terms of cut and clarity, colour and flurourescents. It was cheaper and it made her happier because she is an ethical purchaser.
The diamonds in the surround, for someone unknown reason, were natural and were sourced all over the world. They were dofficult to source and put a dampener of the ethical efforts.
People who want to spend money will, but there is 0 need.
Charging more?
Ultimately, yeah. The article points out that the way they want to do it is with unique designs, carbon neutrality, and transparency in the production chain.
"We make things from pure carbon, but we are carbon neutral" LOL
If you manage to sequester as much CO2 into a diamond as was produced making the energy you used to do it, that’d be sweet.
Actually diamons are plenty but suplier choke supplies to make it "rare."
A pair of Stardew Valley pendants from Etsy is probably more meaningful than diamond rings, tbh.
No thanks. Fuck diamonds and the idiots who buy them
I think diamonds get a bad rep because of shitty companies like De Beers who artificially pump up the price of diamonds. I don't think anyone would have an issue with diamonds if their price range was comparable to amethyst and made ethically.
Yup. We got diamonds for my wife's ring, but we paid a reasonable amount (<$1k; pretty small but pretty diamonds) and we were told they were ethically sourced. I hope that's true, but we're only a small part of the problem, if at all.
Most of my wife's jewelry is her birth stone, which is way cheaper and doesn't have the ethical issues diamonds have.
Ofc nobody would have problems with a rock if it weren't used for violence, theft, exploitation, etc. But that's not the case at all.
#freepalestine
Synthetic diamonds are used for none of those things.