TheCunningLinguists
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The assholes wanted people to spend a month's salary on a ring that can now be had for a week's salary; good riddance DeBeers.
https://www.newser.com/story/372296/deeps-fissures-are-emerging-in-the-diamond-industry.html
drhobotron
These slavers should have been eliminated a century and a half ago.
CheesecakePi
De Beers- please. Go fuck yourself with a sandpaper dildo. Sincerely - the rest of humanity.
StrandedonEarth
60-grit diamond sandpaper…
ConsummateConundrum
De Beers, who has more diamonds sitting in vaults collecting dust than the world will ever, or has ever, seen. They created a "scarcity" to keep prices high. Fuck De Beers. I don't care for jewelry in general, but I'd buy a synthetic just to spite their asses.
hogeyegrex
Back in the 80s, I had a friend whose parents were one of DeBeers’ few direct buyers. The way DeBeers operated was, you get a bag of diamonds every month, and you pay what is asked. If you balk, you don’t get the bag anymore. They are utterly shit. Pretty much all natural diamonds are blood diamonds.
DJThuglifeSupreme
My wife got a lab created Saphire, it was cheaper and had a better color than natural one
Targe0
Because the lab made ones can add more of the colour causing compounds into them.
Thus leading them to have much better colouring.
IMakeLotsOfReferencesAndRemakes
Also they do not contain imperfections that natural stones have... Imagine someone saying "Hey here is lab grown food. We controlled everything that went in for the best taste and quality and it costs less!" and the agricultural industry going "UNFAIR! You are killing our business! The food only has some E. Coli in it! In fact we pride ourselves on the unique flavor it provides! No we will not lower the prices! Yes our workers are essentially slaves!"... actually this is close to reality.
Targe0
Yeah, only something like Opals where the patterns of natural ones can be more complex than lab made ones have any real claim to it.
But that's more buying them for the chaos of natural forming.
Any single colour stone, there's just no reason to get a natural one other than the sake of saying it's natural.
GigglingWordBearer
Al Cook can cram it with razor wire and lemon juice; Diamonds are the huge con and De Beers is the snake oil salesman. Fuck him, and fuck that company.
mithiwithi
I was gonna say, imagine the unmitigated chutzpah of Al Cook to accuse ANYTHING else of being a "huge con".
mithiwithi
Hell, even if he called Trump a huge con I'd still say "takes one to know one."
GigglingWordBearer
Big Facts.
whatexactlyisthefunctionofarubberduck
Oh nooo.. blood diamonds mined by children and resulting in conflict are less popular. Fuck you
IzzyB13337
My fiance originally bought me a nice ring from Costco just for the proposal and then he showed me a website with lab grown diamonds and he told me I could design whatever I wanted for the same price as the Costco one... I got a beautiful marquise lab grown diamond. The size difference is huge, when we picked it up we giggled because it's almost comically large.
sarahsaurroar
Give me nerd bling I'll actually enjoy over a diamond I'd feel funny wearing ANY day. A cool faux ruby/zirconium/faux black gem Pokemon ring or a really pretty nerdy Pokemon necklace and it shows you GET me on a level no one else does. To me, that's more important than a ring you've go into debt for.
wandergirl
My husband proposed to me with his great - grandmother's ring. I love that it has family history, and we didn't contribute further to demand for diamonds
Targe0
Who even still see Diamonds as valuable?
It's well known that their price has been artificially inflated for years.
And the fact cubic zirconia also exists, and most people can't tell the difference.
So what's even the point of having real natural Diamonds? It's overpriced common carbon rocks. They don't even have a nice colour to them.
toolzgalore2
I love my partner, they said they wouldn't accept a ring that cost 2 months salary, and I love them for that amongst other things. Fuck diamonds, the sooner that industry dies, the better.
emu314159127001
fun fact, if you want a shiny for the office, moissonite is shinier than diamond, and costs what diamonds ought to.
toolzgalore2
They wanted a morganite center stone 😁
emu314159127001
The alexandrite people in sri lanka should get in on the action, tell people to buy from them, because all the good stuff from Russia is in the Hermitage. But they don't need to, because that stone is actually rare, not everyone could even have an alexandrite ring
giraffinator
What I don't get is why people spend cash on a diamond when they could easily spend the cash on a holiday or once in a lifetime trip
toolzgalore2
100%
Hammertulski
Seconded
giraffinator
Those memories will serve you better than a stone on your deathbed
LazerSpacePirate
I've got twelve beautiful lab grown diamonds on my engagement ring, with the center stone being amethyst 🖤
eromitlab
I hope De Beers goes bankrupt. Fuck them and their glittery child slave labor trinkets.
HappyPetunia
Make diamonds go where fur coats went?
I’m with you
IMakeLotsOfReferencesAndRemakes
Seriously. Do you know how they know "authentic" from lab grown? Imperfections... They want us to pay more, for an inferior stone harvested unethically. They can go to hell.
MisterFluffi
Which is doubly funny, because they want you to also pay more for less imperfections in the natural stones. So less imperfections = better, unless it's too few imperfections to be natural...
emu314159127001
Don't forget pocketable wealth for Nazis, warlords, and other upstanding genocidal types
Itslukus
https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1aGpxN2x6ZTVqcG5pdG1pZHNkdzNlMG94dzFlNDRyYXlnaXYyMDBoaCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/73lCISNMvgpgc/200w.webp
reineseele
how? even if the company would go bust they have private wealth up to their puckery...
mksu
Did you know your comment is not visible when I am not logged in? Mine isn't either. The top comment when not logged in seems to be the one about getting a lab grown diamond for the wife.
eromitlab
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1dm1leHh6c3ZtdTI3c2g1aDVzd3JndnJoYWlwYm9hdzBlbGRuNDJ0diZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/l0MYNLZmHQbryIMFO/200w.webp
REOJackwagon
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1a2dndTNoenJmcm9iYnZlOW45aW56ZWc2OWgwM3FzNThzYzdyOGZubCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/26u414ForpA2RW5Ww/200w.webp Da Beers
RandallKavanaugh
"Scarcity"? They literally covered a beach with asphalt barbed wire and armed guards to stop people from picking up the numerous diamonds in the sand.
DefqonWarrior
I had to look this up out of curiosity:
"Sperrgebiet" (German for "forbidden area") in Namibia. This is a large, restricted diamond mining area along the coast of southern Namibia. Diamonds were found there in vast quantities in the early 20th century, and the German colonial authorities created a "forbidden zone" to control the mining and prevent people from simply walking in and picking them up off the beaches. The area was heavily guarded, and access was—and still is—extremely restricted.
brianbrian4566
You would have to be an idiot to buy an actual diamond
Osiricus
Or just incredibly rich and without scruples
DoseOfScience
See, if I were to describe something you could point an import tax or tariff at with few consequences, diamonds probably would have been one of the top examples.
LiminallyInsane
Who even needs a diamond? My wedding band has a lab-grown white sapphire. I love it, especially since it matches my husband's, which has a lab-grown blue sapphire.
MartianWeasel
I have only bought my wife lab grown diamonds. She knows they're lab grown and doesn't care. I didn't like the thought of children dying for a shiny rock to put on her finger. The lab diamonds are still beautiful, and I got her a big, shiny, ring. I still spent a months salary on it... but got a much nicer ring than if I had bought a "real" diamond.
FeedTheNachoMan
Why person want shiny rock cost many money when cool rock in river free?
@otterlymagnificent show them the cool rock I got you
OtterlyMagnificent
This rock? (Featuring the ring from our wife @Kitterbean as well.)
Osiricus
Shiiit, been saying for years that De Beers has created the rarity of diamonds and has committed massacres to protect their interests. I hope they burn and suffer just like they've done to people all over Africa.
aplaysallday
Good. Fuck them.
intaglioguy
The "scarcity of natural diamonds" is pure bullshit. Russia is sitting vaults of gem-quality diamonds they threatened to flood the market 1/
intaglioguy
2/ with back in the 1990s. John Stossel did a report on it that aired on 20/20 back in the day.
Recursiv3
My wife only wanted a lab grown. Mainly because it's the only way to guarantee ethically sourced but the insanely lower price tag is a huge boon too
Skywatcher16
the irony of capitalism pricing itself out of the market.
cousteau
Get a big ass one then? Like, how expensive do they get with size? Does it go up with the square of the price too, like with real diamonds? Anyway, hope you got her a big one, Monkey Island 3 style.
AWildPandaAppears
Got my wife a massive 5 carat diamond for her wedding ring. A blood diamond of the same cut a clarity would have cost about 50k, paid $1500 for it.
LiloPleo
Ditto, I only have a small diamond in my ring, at my request, but it had to be lab grown.
rouzuki
Also a superior product unless old age is your kink.
mmontour
If you want ethical mined diamonds you can buy ones from northern Canada, but you might as well save money and get a synthetic.
rubypilgrim
This is good. We chose rings that had no stones, but were made in the Mokume-Gane technique. One look and diamonds were forgotten, which was probably just as well, as we couldn't find one we liked and could afford.
DWolf
Thank you for sharing this and teaching me a new thing.
Salticido
Had to look it up to see what that is. Very cool! Here's the Wikipedia page with a couple pictures for anyone else who's curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokume-gane
Roqinn
Mine last wife wanted a huge stone. She knew the prices and told me to buy a fake diamond, like zircon. I bought a lab grown diamond instead.
Forensickle
For really large "diamonds" I think moissanite is the war to go. Almost as hard, cheaper even than zircon, and has a much much prettier sparkle than diamond does
NKato
Splurging a little bit for a large lab-grown is definitely a great way to impress your wife. Did she at least appreciate it, or was that a reason for the divorce?
Roqinn
She loved it. The cause of the divorce was her cheating on me a decade later.
astrangehop
With a 6'6 test tube baby?
NKato
Well, shit. At least you didn't overpay. :D
instanoodles
Ah, silver linings.
darbythemiddle
OOPSIE
ispendtomuchtimehere
fuck fuck fuck De Beers and their thorough monopoly, I hope they suffer and I would like to invest in a bet against them..
anonymous
I'm proud of you for using an ad blocker, but consider switching to Ublock Origin because it also removes the blank spaces from where the ads used to be.
TheCunningLinguists
Is this an ad?
anonymous
I'm talking about the gap here, where there used to be an ad. Ublock Origin removes that gap; lesser ad blockers don't.
TheCunningLinguists
Yes. I understand what you meant. I was making a joke about you advertising Ublock Origin in a conversation about advertising.
mksu
Saying to hell with diamonds is a great way to tell capitalism to fuck itself. Just don't participate. Don't salvage a "tradition" invented purely for profit. Part of taking society back from the capitalists is erasing them from it.
bogdog799
Funny that evil capitalism created the process to make synthetic diamonds. But capitalism bad apparently.
mksu
Capitalism invented the demand for diamonds in the first place, and then scientists created synthetic diamonds. Capitalists then ran off with the technology and paid their CEOs exorbitant amounts of money, while the scientists who actually developed the technology and created the value received a pittance, because CEO is a social class, not a job, and their role is to look busy while siphoning money from the business and weakening it.
NappaTheFriendlyGhost
My wedding ring is a synthetic sapphire while my wife's is a similar emerald. They cost us around 400 for the set (it was more the craftsman than the gem, they were custom made). Our favorite colors>slavery.
Spudders
My wedding ring is a tungsten carbide band, and my wife's has a fake ruby in it. It's not what the rings are made of that's important, it's what it represents.
NappaTheFriendlyGhost
Our favorite colors represent a big moment in our dating for us. It was the start of a long talk on my couch that ended with her sleeping against my arm. First time we spent the night together and very fond memory for us both.
FeminineBeeOnslaught
The prospect of erasing capitalist brings a big old smile to my face ☺️
BigDaddysMeatWagon
Yes!!
TheSmellOfWineAndCheapPerfume
My engagement ring is black onyx and I love it. It has two small lab grown diamonds in each side. I prefer this over the stuff in the jewelry stores
PrincessWasabi
Better to invest in gold, an asset that is unlikely to depreciate
YourSelfMan
Aaaand it’s a rugpull.
HarperLee
My friend is a jeweler in the fancy suburbs of Seattle. He primarily designs and makes custom jewelry for high end clients. After COVID, he saw a downturn in folks wanting custom jewelry, so he pushed lab-grown hard as a way to still have huge stones in a piece while being "economical." He's made quite a market out of it the last few years
evilspock
Turns out diamond is an incredibly useful raw material - once we get past the artificial scarcity that we've been saddled with, and work out how to grow and manipulate the material (we're just learning) - diamond will usher in all sorts of new materials with new properties we only dream of now.
FeedTheNachoMan
Apparently diamond is a fantastic heat conductor, and we already use it for industrial purposes (heavy-duty abrasive surfaces and diamond-tipped tungsten-carbide saw blades)
evilspock
We've barely begun. But prices need to drop from the artificial high they've been in for a century. They're carbon - no reason that they are inherently expensive.
cosinewave
If natural diamonds are so rare, why do so many people have them? De Beers has always been about maintaining a false scarcity. Don't stop there, why is gold so valuable? It is not particularly useful for much but people are willing to kill for it.
PrincessWasabi
Gold is actually really useful in electronics, and it’s finite. Cannot be synthesized
cosinewave
True but it is not a sound basis for a economic system. So many right-wing types feel we should move back to the gold standard but that would be a disaster. Except for a few more or less industrial uses it is not good for much and is practical terms is vastly overvalued.
PrincessWasabi
Oh no, definitely cannot replace currency with gold lmao. How idiotic lol
KilroyLichking
natural diamonds arn't rare de beers has a functional monopoly on the mining of diamonds and their cartel hordes uncut stones in a vault under their headquarters and use their stockpiles to directly manipulate market prices.
hogeyegrex
They don’t manipulate so much as determine. See my post above.
emu314159127001
They're super not. At one point 95% of all diamonds ever mined were in DeBeers vaults, even now it's like half. The cartel controls the market. Unlike every other actually rare thing, like say, black opals, where you buy from the person who mined it, or an auction site, or whatever, but it's just open. The expression used to be more precious than rubies, because those actually ARE rare, to see not heat treated, non occluded stones.
meme2zombie
Gold same thing, it's easy to make jewellery out of that doesn't tarnish so it became synonymous with wealth and opulence but as shown by every electronic being gold plated and billions of people with rings it's not that rare.
myotherusernameismyotherusername
Aside from making modern technology feasible, yeah, gold does nothing.
NR97420
The thing is, diamonds *are* more useful than the vast majority of gemstones. Like gold, there *is* value beyond the pretty jewelry.
NR97420
The value just isn't as crazy if you take away the pretty aspect...
emu314159127001
but not rare. or valuable, no one wanted them till they made up the fake engagement ring. which wasn't a thing everyone did until the 1930s, when debeers had an ad campaign. i mean, the irish had claddagh rings, but they weren't engagement. some rich people did have rings, but again, not universal
faro2000
Gold is not particularly useful? Seriously, what....?
Take a look inside your mobile phone and tell me what that gold-colored metal is.
cosinewave
True but the gold sitting in vaults and buried in the basements of preppers is not being used for electronics. They believe it will be the only currency if there is a global economic crash but will it really? No, food, water, medicine, and shelter will be the main commodities. Gold will not matter one bit.
gayvillian
Gold is rare but so are a lot of elements. Its just thst out of them, we value gold more because of its history as a status symbol and it's usefulness. Theres other stuff that's very useful but we dont make into jewelry.
DrunkBobRoss
Gold isn’t intrinsically worth that much more than silver.
faro2000
What do you mean by "worth"?
Gold is much rarer than silver in the Earth's crust (by a factor of around 20) and silver corrodes. Have fun in a fly-by-wire airplane where the electronic contacts are subject to corrosion as well as wear and tear.
DrunkBobRoss
$3000 an ounce?
lightfoot2
Considering you only need a tiny amount of gold plate to get all the benefits sure. I seem to recall an ounce or two is all that is needed to cover the capitol do. E
meme2zombie
Silver is a slightly worse conductor and it and copper tarnish, that's why gold is used for electronics.
But yes the value of it is way higher than it's utility would require.
0RumRunner
Fun fact, pure silver is actually one of the best conductors. Gold wins out for many applications because it doesn't tarnish, among other reasons.
meme2zombie
Oh I remembered wrong then, thanks!.
billstranger
These days we replace our electronics every 2 or 3 years anyway, copper is more than adequate. The anti-tarnish property might be fantastic for something that lives at a salt-water beach, but anything else...