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Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and vastly cheaper than mined diamonds. Beating nature took decades of hard graft and millions of pounds of pressure.
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- Title
- Lab-grown diamonds - Works in Progress
- Word count
- 7318 words
Serious question here - Is the quality of the gem relevant to a substantial portion of the population when it comes to buying them for jewelry?
In the groups that I am around, everyone kind of falls into one of the following camps:
It is very possible that I am not in the kind of circles that are relevant to this topic though, and I would like to hear what the rest of the world's outlooks are.
My personal take is that diamonds are boring and fraught. Not just because of the violence... From De Beer using their once 90% monopoly on supply to control prices, to their incredibly successful marketing campaign 200 years ago which singlehandedly created the diamond engagement ring market, to their addon campaign that arbitrarily introduced how much of your income you should spend on a ring. It's a story of cynical capitalism, devoid of romance.
So I guess I can't directly answer your question as diamond jewelry isn't something I'd buy, but my understanding is that people are usually concerned with how much they're spending as a proxy for quality, rather then deeply investigating the quality for themselves.
I liked what the article said - that at this point the symbolism of commitment around a diamond ring is fully embedded in the culture and isn't going anywhere. Because I completely subscribe to the notion of it being a bunch of capitalist bullshit from a monopoly and have done for a decade or two.
That being said, I've semi-followed the concept of lab grown diamonds over the years, passionately awaiting for my millennial cohort to destroy yet another industry with our buying preferences!
I've checked in once or so every couple years and still been saddened by the prices of lab grown diamonds that are pre-cut into shapes. Now, I get market forces. All you need to do is under-cut mined diamonds by a little bit and you can win.
It was refreshing to search online tonight after reading this historical piece about the science behind ma -made diamonds and see that it has genuinely changed finally. You can buy an unset lab grown diamond for < $200 USD. You can also buy massive carat multiple thousand dollar lab grown diamonds preset in a ring.
I've had multiple partners in my life, some that cared about a traditional engagement ring and some that haven't.
I've never ever thought, myself, that I would want or accept some nonsense about spending a fixed portion of my yearly income on a ring if I were to marry. But I've also accepted in my years that if it's important to my partner to have that symbol, that's okay. I think a lot of folks are absolutist about whether it's okay or not, and I've even been that guy.
I've also grown in my career, and I can look at the prices of some of these trinkets and not get angry. That's been a nice feeling for awhile. But I'll end with this: if a couple isn't on the same page on the financial feasibility and acceptability of something as trivial as a symbol of their commitment ... That's not a basis upon which to form a legal contract.
The marriage industry is a bunch of bullshit. I've been to enough weddings and seen enough divorces over financial irreconcilable differences that I simply grant my sympathies to anyone that experienced a divorce over such circumstances.
I strongly support that decimation of the diamond cartels in favor of lab-grown diamonds.
My wife and I are doing our part. Did cheap amber for engagement, some cheap metal bands for rings...then stopped wearing them inside of 5 years because we hate wearing rings. They're now in a shadowbox with the rest of the Vegas wedding memorabilia. It's been 10 years since that point, now with two kids. Maybe at our 20 year we'll stop procrastinating and get those tattoos we talked about.
Anyway, be the change you want to be in the world, and tell any potential partners that you will not let a pretty rock stand proxy for a functioning relationship. Thats how these norms get torn apart, one unsold jewel at a time.
I get what you're saying about not being a dealbreaker for you, but for me, if my wife did expect a fancy rock, I might have caved, but it'd mean that I was forced to sacrifice my values to move forward with the relationship...and thats not a healthy foundation IMO.
While its not a total relationship-ender the way kids/childfree is, its definitely reflective of values I wouldn't want in a partner.
Bravo, I could have written almost your entire comment (less succinctly and with more raving)
I think in most parts we have. When I was getting married decades ago, we heard a bunch of attitude from other people about our gem choices. So much so my partner almost caved and seriously discussed if we should give in to the marketing, even knowing full well, because he didn't want to be perceived as unable to / unwilling to provide for his bride. To which I actually took offense at the time.
Anyway, fast forward to today, I don't think any one, even old busy bodies, would really have much to go on anymore if a young couple decides to eschew the cartels: they might still say something but the attitude has shifted from "self righteous authority of traditions" to "well you youngsters just don't get it boo hoo". But I highly doubt they'll even go that far.
If you found some cheap lab diamonds please link me :) I haven't looked in years. I still love the fire of moissanites more, but I would be happy to add a 1 carat princess cut carbon to my collection if it's finally under $400.
I did! I spent a few hours looking at all the fun sliders on two websites. Check out "Ritani".
Some of the rabbit hole I was reading yesterday:
It's really cool you can just buy a pre-cut one now and do whatever you want with it.
Woah........
I think I know what I want for Christmas!! Those prices are very reasonable for shiny trinkets. Yay science!
I also fell down the Reddit lab group sales hole after browsing ritani. Apparently Chinese or Indian jewelers will post a design and then offer discount if if ten+ people order. Items are shipped individually, worldwide
Anecdotally, five years ago no one said a single word to me about our choice to have titanium rings instead of diamonds. That's not just because the people around me are super accepting. I got a lot of flack for me (a woman) proposing to a man, and for not taking his name. It might be that they thought they were picking their battles, though.
In the end, all that matters is that there's pressure from the top as well as from consumers at the bottom to change the status quo. Changing the status quo is a net good for so many reasons and in a superficial way, why shouldn't you be able to pay less for a superior quality (and ethically clean) product without social stigma? Lab-made diamonds should be available to those who want them and really the monopolies on diamond mining should've been undone long ago to prevent a lot of violence and human-trafficking, or for those who aren't into that then to allow for a competitive market to develop.
In the end, much like with plant-based protein options, we'll never really get to a point where there's total conversion from one thing to the other. But as people have options, they'll be able to make choices that change the market. That should encourage the real-diamonds folks as well as the meat-from-animals folks, because in the future there will be more for them and there will be less demand when these alternatives are normalized. More for them.
By merit of being here, in this tiny, self-selected, obscure corner of the English speaking Internet, we are, not possibly, but most definitely not in the kind of circles where rocks and signifiers of their ilk have value in a way that escapes our comprehension.
This is where you get into quality stuff.
If you feel that synthetic diamonds (or gems in general) are not for you, then yes you are likely going to be paying a premium for size, clarity, and cut.
These things are absolutely relevant to the population? When you think of a gemstone you almost always think of something with vibrant and clear color or a decent size and cut. Most diamonds are much the same.
There's a lot of external reasons diamonds cost what they do (some are no longer relevant but over cited), but yeah if you don't want to get synthetic, you probably at least care about the visual appearance of the stone, so yes you care about "quality"
I understand how something that is more natural and characterful can be preferable to something that is created to be perfect. After all, I prefer homegrown flowers to store-bought flowers, original paintings to prints, and handmade furniture to something made in a factory.
But I don't really get it for diamonds. There is nothing romantic about industrial mining. A diamond ring inherited from a grandparent? Absolutely. A ring set with a diamond that I found myself? Of course. But heavy industry doesn't really do it for me.
Nor do I see any point in having a diamond with more character if I need an expert jeweler just to tell me it has character. If I want character, I'll go with a gemstone that actually has some character, like an opal.
I know many people disagree with me, but I think that is in large part due to marketing efforts, and I think this sentiment will fade over time. If we can get over buying wood that is produced on tree farms rather than logged out of old growth forests, we can get over this.
I think in your examples, the part that makes them special are the craftsmanship that went into them. It's the same for me.
Ultimately, anything we give as a gift is just a clump of atoms, we're not using them for any actual work, and we usually don't plan on reselling gifts, so the whole concept of them being valuable or not to the wider world is basically meaningless in my eyes. What makes them valuable is dependant on the individual person, and for me, knowing that a great deal of skilled labor went into creating something makes it more valuable.
Ultimately if a nugget of crystalized carbon was crystalized by sitting under billions of tons of rocks for a long time, or in a machine has no bearing on how valuable I find it. The work that went into crafting the ring it's set in, cutting the gem, and setting it matters a lot more to me.
Similarly, a crappily screwed together chair made from endangered zebrawood is a lot less valuable to me than an expertly joined and finished chair made from southern yellow pine.
Art is intrinsically valuable, clumps of atoms are not.
I can't speak for anyone else, and I don't own any jewellry other than a gold wedding band, but it's not the industrial mining that would give it the character in my eyes, it's the sheer pre-history. A naturally formed diamond is potentially billions of years old, at the very least tens of millions. And by virtue of being at a depth that can be mined it has traveled for miles through the earth's crust before a human ever saw it. I don't really care for diamonds visually or culturally, hence not owning any, but I definitely feel the geology gives naturally formed diamonds more meaning.
I went looking for uses of diamond heat spreaders. Here's one possible use:
Diamond nanomembranes make electronics 10x cooler, 5x faster to charge
...
Interesting look at it. I knew that diamonds are used in industrial applications, for instance bore drills, but I didn't know it was also used in electronics.
What a fantastic article, thank you for sharing! I was surprised that diamonds could have such semi-conductor potential (though in hindsight I shouldn't be, as silicon is sometimes discussed as alternative biochemistry for alien life for the same reason, it's one row lower than carbon). Given how we're nearing the end of Moore's law I could see further research in diamonds being one avenue to stretch classical computers a bit further.
And finally... I hope that we'll just outgrow the pretty mining industry. I have a some minerals at home, especially bought when I was younger. And sometimes I look at them and wonder what the cost in blood was, and is.
My wife and I have stainless steel weddings bands because we were poor and eloped, but if we ever upgrade to nicer rings I definitely want lab-grown gemstones for ethical reasons alone, so it's reassuring that they're also cheaper and prettier!
Just found this on Mastodon and found it highly relevant to this existing (and recent) topic:
You can buy a diamond-making machine for $200,000 on Alibaba, plus blog commentary.