What do you believe is overrated?

@LilithoftheTrees they’ve been hyper-promoted by the DeBeers family who tried to corner the market on them for almost a century. Before that they were generally just used to enhance colored gems.

@cherokeepatti that and many other gemstones across the world. I recognize their industrial uses but they are highly overpriced and the amount of war and mayhem funded by them is shocking.

@cherokeepatti actually diamonds have a number of industrial uses from drilling to light refractors.

@DeWayfarer Yes. And synthetic diamonds are used in industry, but I wonder what percentage. My issue comes with the indoctrination that a diamond that some person has broken their back for or been threatened signifies true love because it’s millions of years old. And wars and conflicts it funds. It’s very sad.

@LilithoftheTrees well im ambivalent on synthetic diamond issue. For industrial purposes they don't seem to be quite as good as natural diamonds.

Example black carbon diamond dust seems to be the best for sanding purposes. And they have yet to even make synthetic black carbon diamonds for sanding.

@DeWayfarer I think the synthetic market is slowly growing as it’s more ethical, faster and cheaper, I’m convinced that in time industrial uses for diamonds will be replaced by only synthetics. Kicker is that the diamond monopoly dictated how many carats the labs can grow in the past, now I wonder why that is🙄.
I’m not sure of the recent statistics or of how covid has affected the industry. I just know that’s it’s dirty.

@LilithoftheTrees for sanding purposes the impurities in the dust (and what makes it black) is what makes it adhere to the paper made for sanding. The cost of synthetic diamonds doesn't allow for the impurities to be included.

So your argument about purities of synthetic diamonds really doesn't apply. 🤷‍♂️

@cherokeepatti De Beers was the name of the farm where they found the diamonds. The real guy who started the whole thing in South Africa was an Englishman named Cecil John Rhodes. So he had full control under the company of DeBeers and controlled the supply heavily…he had to create the demand though. How do you think he did that? A marketing campaign in the States. A diamond is forever and all that…. It’s a fascinating story if you’re interested.

@LilithoftheTrees I’ve watched a documentary about it. They gave jewelry to actresses if they promised to wear it in movies, that was one thing to get the demand up for diamond jewelry. Another thing is that they put pressure on small diamond mines here and maybe elsewhere to not mine commercially. I’ve heard they did that to the Arkansas diamond mine, it’s small and they turned it into a tourist destination where people can pay a fee to dig and sift the dirt for diamonds or other gems.

@DeWayfarer it’s not really an argument though. I was wondering myself about the applications of synthetic diamonds within the industry, I’d have to learn more about that to know what I’m talking about. I’m more interested in the conflict diamonds and how the industry claim they are able, or at least trying to trace the source of blood diamonds. Some say this is almost impossible to do.

@cherokeepatti It has all the aspects of a great story, murder, cover ups, misinformation, money, betrayal and more. Fascinating. I’m not really that aware of the history of other places as much as SA but it’s fascinating and frightening across the board. Diamonds are beautiful, but worth the price people pay for them? Nah. I inherited a huge diamond from my mother…a so called Blue White. I’m too afraid to wear the damned thing in case my finger gets chopped off (that’s not an exaggeration). A few years ago I read a similar story about opals in Australia and how rumours were started by competing gemstone miners that an opal is bad luck. And so on…and you can get similar stories about sapphires, rubies, emeralds, lapis and now Tanzanite (there’s only so much left gentlemen, better buy now to show your love)
It’s just so dirty and overrated. But they are beautiful, I just think people should be aware.

@LilithoftheTrees no idea about blood diamonds. Just a bit familiar with the industrial uses of diamonds and why I budded in. I suppose blood diamonds may have an industrial use yet have no idea for what. Lasers perhaps?

@DeWayfarer I don’t know, but I did read that blood diamonds are smuggled out especially the Congo through Sierra Leone and bought by traders illegally that circumvent the law somehow and they end up in Antwerp for commercial sale. And those diamonds, are mined by villagers under duress, torture and murder. The warlords use the profits to enslave more villagers, buy more guns and make more war. It’s really inhumane. Who knows what’s going on with all that now? The industry is trying to stop and combat it but critics say that’s it’s almost impossible to trace.

This is my issue with them. Here diamonds have done fantastic things for our economy, but at what cost to human life. I don’t know man. It’s a sick and dirty story. Not all obviously. But when you start reading, it’s pretty horrific.