Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/30/de-beers-to-sell-lab-made-diam.html
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Do they inject synthetic blood of oppressed diamond miners into them?
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Diamonds are silly.
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“that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now,"
Because diamonds made in the lab disintegrate after six months and you can’t place them in a new setting?
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Fun… I just started a new part-time job building machines that “uses advanced spectroscopy for very fast detection of natural diamonds.”
On one hand is this good or bad for my job? On the other diamond mines are horrible places.
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So after decades of artificially inflating the price of natural diamonds, now they’re going to artificially inflate the price of synthetic diamonds?
Here’s a suggestion: if you have the money to spend on jewelry, and insist on paying full price for new stuff instead of spending far less on something just as beautiful but used, why not get your money’s worth by choosing gemstones that are actually rare and non-sytnthesizable?
Or you could spend the money on something actually useful to the lives of yourself and your partner. Radical thought I know.
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The idea of looking to any part of the diamond industry for guidance on taste or ethics is pretty amusing.
Oh I see what you did there. Maybe if we pretend that there is some difference between natural and synthetic diamonds, people will continue to pay a huge premium for the knowledge that their stone was dug out of the ground by genuine artisanal mistreated workers.
It’s hard not to see a delicious moral in this. No one worries about synthetic amber or jade or marble, because while those are much easier to synthesize, their value comes from their flaws, which are hard to fake, and the genuine articles aren’t so overpriced anyway. The diamond industry has made a fetish of “purity” and “flawlessness” (and spending for spending’s sake), and it’s increasingly obvious that the culmination of that fetish is a big old unromantic chemical vapor deposition epitaxy machine.
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Because they are not annointed with the marketing pixie dust that makes them sell for far more than their true value.
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It all comes down to how will the rich be able to separate themselves from the masses? Make limited edition synthetic diamonds with sport team logos or Avenger hero microscopically imprinted on it.
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You wouldn’t want your diamonds grown from soulless industrial carbon feedstocks would you?
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The rich will enjoy genuine natural diamonds bathed in the blood of genuine poors from Africa. Each one comes with a certificate of authenticity printed on human skin attesting to how it was dug from the earth by child slaves who survived the massacre of their hometowns by rebel forces vying to become the official seller to DeBeers.
The poor will have to settle for flawless synthetic diamonds drenched in the blood of enslaved factory robots.
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I think their plan is the opposite. Flood the synthetic market with cheap diamonds. Make it unprofitable.
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“Let’s be real, young man with the stars in your eyes. What are the odds of your marriage lasting longer than the payments on that ring?”
New guideline: two hours’ salary.
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Diamonds have always been a massive global scam. They are not particularly rare.
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“That marketing line, “affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever” suggests it’ll all be deliberately trashy-looking to create a perceived distinction in quality between lab and mined carbon chunks.”
I think it’s a subtle bit of protectionism for their mined stone business, even when the jewelry is otherwise identical. The implication, as I read it, is that this is fine for everyday jewelry; but you’d still better shell out the big bucks for things that really matter (like engagement rings) to “show you care.”
It’s utter BS either way.
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Now there’s an idea! How about 3D printed jewelry for the 6-hour engagement? Want a second date? Print a second ring!
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Why did people even buy diamonds to begin with? They’re boring, like all-white Christmas light displays.
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I recommend this short ‘article’ if one would like to enjoy some mindless and unfunded dribble about the (‘spiritual’ *shudders) nature and value of diamonds: https://www.refinery29.com/2017/02/140389/diamond-symbolism-of-love
(Pro tip: The comments at the bottom are also curated for high quality fluff and stupid, so don’t miss out)
Ugh!
Edit: Ojve, once you start reading these fluff pieces (about diamonds), they get worse and worse and dumber and dumber. I beg of you, do not go down this path!
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Imagine if the floral industry had spent decades trying to convince people that a “real” bouquet must be made from flowers unsustainably harvested from virgin rainforest instead of accepting the inevitability of greenhouses.
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