Lab-grown rocks and fewer weddings have put a huge damper on the market. On the bright side, a big dazzler is now affordable for many
  • finitebanjo@lemmy.worlddeleted by creatorEnglish
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    2 years ago

    I respect jewelers and stonesetters as an art, but the rock itself has negative value in my eyes.

    • sploosh@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 years ago

      There’s nothing wrong with orderly carbon. There’s more than a few things wrong with Debeers

      • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        2 years ago

        yeah, like the heat conduction thing is super cool, and the ability to scratch literally anything, while not particularly useful, is still pretty neat

        I bet once diamonds get cheap enough CPU manufacturers will start using them as heat spreaders on their high end chips

        • Bronzebeard@lemm.eeEnglish
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          2 years ago

          Scratching things is super useful. We have so many tools based on exactly that principle

    • Sippy Cup@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 years ago

      The rock is quite useful as an industrial tool. It’s when you cut it in to a fancy shape and wear it that it’s pretty useless.

      We use diamonds to test the hardness of materials, grind really hard things smaller, orient and locate specialized cutting tools, and cut through really hard things. Hell we sell garnet by the barrel to help cut through regular materials. Orderly carbon or, in many cases orderly aluminum oxide, is something we need a lot of. The price going down on those is actually good for manufacturing.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.worlddeleted by creatorEnglish
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        2 years ago

        But the industrial rocks are 90% manmade, the stonesetter diamonds were mined with slave labour or close to it, and people probably died for them.

  • ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ@lemm.eeEnglish
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    2 years ago

    i never understood why a mined diamond has a bigger value than an artificially made one when the only difference is the suffering of the workers. ppl who like diamonds are stupid.

    • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
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      2 years ago

      The first thing DeBeers tried was “artificial diamonds have imperfections, you want a real rock that’s selected to be as perfect as possible”. Then the artificial industry made diamonds so good that you could only tell the difference from the lack of imperfections. Then DeBeers marketing changed to “it’s too perfect, you want something that has the small imperfections of a natural process”.

    • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 years ago

      Same reason diamonds are valued in the first place. Marketing campaigns tricking the gullible majority and most of the rest conforming to not stand out and cause issues for themselves.

      • SparrowRanjitScaur@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        2 years ago

        Diamonds do make sense as gemstones because of their hardness. They’ll stay scratch free for life. But ya, the diamond industry is garbage.

        • JcbAzPx@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          2 years ago

          They’re too common to be truly valuable, though, and that’s before factoring in that you can just make them now.

        • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          2 years ago

          Maybe, but realistically, most jewelry will have them inlaid in gold anyway, which is not hard at all. So you need to take care not to scratch it regardless of what gem is used.

          Also, many other gems are harder then steel which is about the hardest thing your jewelry would come into contact with.

          So I would say the benefit is minor.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 years ago

      There is this idea that seems to be really pervasive that natural is always better. And it’s not true so often. A common example I like to give is that natural almond extract contains cyanide and artificial almond extract does not. No, it isn’t enough cyanide to kill you, but I would say no cyanide is better than some cyanide.

      And a lot of those “natural is always better” people would happily take fentanyl over willow bark if they were in agony.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 years ago

      For a long time (and maybe still currently I don’t know) they weren’t able to make diamonds bigger like people want. So for a small diamond it might not make any sense, but there was a point where ones we made weren’t meeting what people wanted.

      • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        2 years ago

        synthetic diamond sizes keep getting bigger, but it is much harder to make them I think

        As of 2023 the heaviest synthetic diamond ever made weighs 30.18 ct (6.0 g); the heaviest natural diamond ever found weighs 3167 ct (633.4 g). Wikipedia

        That would be 1.7 vs 181 cm3

    • gex@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 years ago

      If that was the case they would have pivoted towards selling polycule rings, they could sell N*M rings to a polycule with N males and M females

  • Emotional_Series7814@kbin.melroy.org
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    2 years ago

    Geoffrey Farrow at Raphael, a jeweller on the other side of the street, can only just bring himself to sell lab-grown diamonds. “They are synthetic,” he said. “Lab-grown sounds exotic, but it’s created – they make it by the buckets. There’s no history to it. The price is going to go down further and further.”

    I find that a very interesting perspective. I prefer the idea of something we made with human ingenuity as opposed to some thing you dug out of the dirt, probably with a shoddily-hidden special history of slavery and tears, and before that, just sitting in the ground like a bunch of other boring things. The history of a lab-grown is entirely mine and my hypothetical partner’s to create.

    If I was a diamond person anyways. I’d be more worried about losing the expensive ring somehow and worrying over it, and would much rather buy the cheapest thing that can still socially function as “look, I am married, don’t hit on me!” without having to wear some ugly shirt that says that. Ideally both me and my hypothetical partner would just forgo expensive rings (and don’t get me wrong, I’m adamantly not a T-shirt and jeans person, I like to dress up, I have just never been a ring person) and spend it on something else we would both like.

    For those who do not share my opinions on wedding rings, which is valid, I am also glad to hear lab-grown prices are down so people can still get that ring they love without breaking the bank and without supporting De Beers.

    • fafferlicious@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      2 years ago

      While violence behind diamond mines is real and should never be forgotten, don’t be obtuse. It’s not some thing you pulled from dirt.

      It’s still beautiful. It’s still a gem. It’s still something that naturally formed over millions of years in the crucible of fire and pressure beneath our crust. That history is astounding and something people can marvel at.

      Don’t begrudge Geoffrey Farrow his wonder at the world around him.

      P.s. Fuck De Beers. Fuck the false scarcity. Fuck the slavery and violence and exploitation of nations the diamond trade relies on.

      • Emotional_Series7814@kbin.melroy.org
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        2 years ago

        I suppose I’m probably the most anti-nature environmentalist. Protect this because we need it to live, and animals need it to live. But I really personally hate nature, it doesn’t bring me pleasure. I have been to some of the wonders of the world and was not floored, breath not taken away. “Checks out, let’s move on.” (Why’d I go to see it then? Someone else with me wanted to see it :P I’m a lot more interested in history that directly involves humans or something once living. For me, dinosaurs and artifacts of early human civilization are cool, gems are not.) I don’t marvel at it, and any reason to dismiss something made with cruelty is something I’ll eagerly jump on, even if it’s definitely not a popular perspective. To me it really is an overvalued thing you pulled out of the dirt, no matter the facts behind how it formed inside the dirt.

        Disclaimer: I don’t say this to be contrarian, I am really not the type. Popular ≠ bad and I’m not some special unique snowflake, I just have some quirks where I have a different opinion, as does everyone else! I don’t like nature, others don’t like chocolate. I think most people have at least one unpopular preference/dislike, this is mine.

  • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    2 years ago

    I’d like to see new uses for diamonds that take advantage of their material properties. For example, the thermal conductivity of diamonds is very high.

    • TurtleSoup@lemmy.zipEnglish
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      2 years ago

      Industrial diamonds have always been on the cheap and that industry is far removed from the jewelry/gem industry, in fact a large majority of diamonds that are mined aren’t gem grade, they’re industrial grade. It’s been growing and advancing despite the jewelry/gem market starting to fall.

    • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
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      2 years ago

      Diamond thermal paste is out there. It’s okay, but like most thermal paste (besides liquid metal, which has its own issues), it doesn’t give extraordinary results over anything else. People tend to really overthink thermal paste; it’s going to give you maybe 4 extra degrees C, and that’s already pushing it.

      Graphene is an even better thermal conductor, and heat pipes are tons better than either. There’s some work out there on enhancing heat pipes with graphene.

  • Loce@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    2 years ago

    You know, it must be that food and rent are a bit higher priority than the pressure stones… especially when more and more people cant afford those… food and rent i mean.