783
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 163 points 5 months ago

Good. Fuck rich people.

[-] [email protected] 129 points 5 months ago

Lab-grown rocks

When I was getting married a few years ago, I remember thinking fuck real diamonds lab-grown are literally the same thing. I remember getting some push back from some weirdos about how "real" diamonds are some how better or how people will think I'm a cheapskate or how people will feel bad for my wife...

Well, fast forward a few years and literally nobody cares, thinks about, or has said anything negative about my wife's ring. We are both 1000000% happy and satisfied with the decision to buy lab grown.

[-] [email protected] 59 points 5 months ago

We said fuck diamonds entirely, even lab grown, and even had to go out of our way to find something that didnt have diamonds on it somehow

[-] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago

Fucking noice, dude. 👏 Honestly, yeah, why even diamonds. They brainwashed us good.

[-] [email protected] 46 points 5 months ago

Women love diamonds for their wide range of industrial applications.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Like making pickaxes and mining obsidian?

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[-] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

Mostly because they dont get scratched. Theyre pretty neat. Not blood diamonds though, those are a crime against humanity.

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[-] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago

When it's time for children I recommend lab grown as well!

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[-] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

We decided on some cheap silver rings. We really didn't want to carry around something extremely valuable everywhere. Go swimming and lose 5000€ in the lake? Do some yard work and lose your diamond ring there? Getting mugged and the robber is getting something really expensive? No, thank you.

Expensive wedding rings & jewelery did make sense in the past when women were not allowed their own money, bank accounts etc. as a way to escape an abusive husband. Pawn your expensive wedding ring, get cash for the getaway. But we're not living in the 50s, my wife has her own bank account, is earning her own money, so no need for something like that.

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[-] [email protected] 85 points 5 months ago

Diamonds are worthless outside of industrial uses.

[-] [email protected] 47 points 5 months ago

I disagree. They ARE pretty. Just not as pretty as a rose or a sunset and yeah best used as industrial tooling.

[-] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago

I would rate them above roses personally. Below a good sunset though; nearly nothing manmade beats those

[-] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

Good sunsets are frequently man-made too, the most beautiful red glowing ones own their look to dust - air pollution.

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[-] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The same can be said for precious metals as well except precious metals can't be manufactured. Their natural scarcity gives them some value beyond their utility.

Diamonds however are not scarce.

[-] [email protected] 77 points 5 months ago

Thank goodness, maybe I’ll finally be able to buy a diamond pickaxe for what few emeralds I have. I’ve been having to use stone tools in this economy and I’d really like some obsidian for a nether portal.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago

if you want to go to hell, just wait.

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[-] [email protected] 54 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months 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.

[-] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago

The suffering is the point

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[-] [email protected] 25 points 5 months 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.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

I think a better analogy would be oxycodone or hydromorphone over opium but your point stands

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[-] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months 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.

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[-] [email protected] 52 points 5 months ago

Prices are so bad that De Beers is for sale?! Wild.

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[-] [email protected] 51 points 5 months ago

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

[-] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago

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

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[-] [email protected] 15 points 5 months 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.

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[-] [email protected] 49 points 5 months ago

Fuck De Beers.

[-] [email protected] 44 points 5 months ago

Bottom falls out on commodity made artifically rare through imperailism and corruption. Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel bad for De Beers?

[-] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

To be fair, diamonds are indeed rare on earth. But what made diamond price come crashing is because we now managed to synthesise the diamonds. These "fake" diamonds flooded the market. This is good news so that we don't have to rely on exploitative extraction of the mineral.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

Also because newer generations just aren't sold on diamonds being a luxury item anymore. Your average Joe just isn't paying their rent or more on a diamond engagement/wedding ring like they used to because, well, that's their rent payment or mortgage for something that's gonna lose value the second they walk out of the store.

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[-] [email protected] 43 points 5 months 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.

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[-] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago

Artificially expensive shiny rocks less valuable than advertised.

Fun fact, reputable pawn shops don't pay for gemstones because they're effectively worthless. They only pay for previous metals. If you sell a wedding ring they'll only pay you what the metals are worth.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago

Not really. They will pay you as little as they can get away with. Often that's the value of the metals.

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[-] [email protected] 38 points 5 months ago

Finally, rocks might be worth what rocks are worth.

[-] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago
[-] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Fucking young people and their... lack of money!

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[-] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago

Now this is my kind of uplifting news!

[-] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago

I'd buy more diamonds, but I spent all my money on avocado toast.

[-] [email protected] 32 points 5 months 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.

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[-] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago

Good. Hope the whole industry goes bust.

[-] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago

Paying overprice for a lump of carbon is insane.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago

My mother was always bitter that an anniversary ring my father gave her turned out to be synthetic, but I think back in the 80s lab grown diamonds went cloudy after a while.

She could also have been complaining about anything and Everything my father had done 24/7 once the separation and inevitable divorce were in effect.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago

The longer I live, the clearer I see that the beliefs of my youth were just capitalist lies.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

All essentials are going up but at least some useless luxury items are coming down.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

I bet there still over priced.

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[-] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

Good should never be so high. Artificially inflated prices. Due to one company holding the diamonds

[-] [email protected] 10 points 5 months 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.

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this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
783 points (98.5% liked)

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