
Shaking Up the Diamond Industry - EwanToo
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/03/the-woman-shaking-up-the-diamond-industry
======
rcarmo
My father was a diamond cutter (one of the folk who designed the modern
“Portuguese cut” of the 70s) and he went through the evolution of diamond
cutting from abrasion with copper disks (for cutting windows and facets) to
laser cuts.

I distinctly remember going into the (then state-owned) workshops as a kid and
watching the cutters at work with their loupes, and how they kept tabs on
stones by checking in and out of the vaults little envelopes annotated with
each step of the process - it was true craftsmanship.

Biggest stone I “saw” (they did resin molds of the large ones for senior
cutters to measure and mark the places for clamping and cutting, and my father
would bring some models home to study and review other cutters’ suggestions)
was about 2x2x3cm, and IIRC it was cut down into many smaller ones due to
impurities (you’d cut a window to peer in, assess where the impurities were
and then plan the cuts to excise them or avoid including them into the
finished cut).

The techniques are sure to be vastly different today, but the detachment with
which he viewed his work was rather fun: they were intricate puzzles to
maximize yield during the rough cut phase and reflectiveness during the
shaping phase - they did the math by hand for the facet sizes and angles, and
it took years to figure out the best ways to do some of the shaping in a
reproducible fashion (that was his key achievement).

And all that time, they were “just pretty rocks”. He was very nonchalant about
it, and never considered them of much value. DeBeers tried to hire him and he
pretty much said he was done with the hype (rather amusing considering I’m
about his age at the time and also fed up with our industry hype).

(Also, if you read Michael Crichton’s “Congo”, he got the diamond color names
wrong)

~~~
rcarmo
Also, a note on the humanitarian side of things, but not directly related to
mining: When the Portuguese colonies seceded in the 70s, many people returned
or emigrated to Portugal with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and
"diamonds" they had exchanged their farms and real estate for.

I remember a few dinner conversations about how a few of them came to my
father to assess the value of those stones, and most were chunks of quartz or
other worthless crystals.

I think some of those conversations were really tough, and one of the reasons
he disconnected from work as much as he could (his hobby was electronics, and
one of the reasons I got into computers was that he brought a Sinclair ZX81
from London after years of putting together various kits, including a HeathKit
oscilloscope).

So, in a way, diamonds are the reason I do what I do these days.

~~~
primity
I come from one of those families. My grandfather came back to Portugal from
Angola soon after the war started. Unfortunately, he never got to trade his
possessions for diamonds, so they had essentially their clothes.

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olliswe
I currently live in Sierra Leone working as a software dev, and just came back
from an evening jog around the largest diamond mine in West Africa. It's crazy
how much pain an misery diamonds have caused to this country. The citizens
here in Koidu don't get any of the income of the diamonds, and live it extreme
poverty... Meanwhile the guys from De Beers are living bougie lives in their
maximum security compounds, with a pool, western supermarket and bar.

------
jake-low
Folks who enjoyed this article may also be interested in this one [0] from The
Atlantic, published in 1982, which chronicles the rise of the diamond industry
during the 20th century.

[0]: [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-
yo...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-
tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/)

~~~
dang
Discussed 5 months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20818618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20818618)

2012:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4535611](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4535611)

2010:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1405698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1405698)

Also 2010:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1110283](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1110283)

Those are the big threads. Lots of little ones too:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=tried%20sell%20diamond&sort=byDate&type=story)

The author showed up here once:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5414757](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5414757)

------
lordnacho
I still wish I'd discovered Moissanite before I got married. The rock would
have been multiples larger and I'd have the satisfaction of not contributing
to a monopolistic and exploitative industry.

~~~
irishcoffee
I was fortunate enough to discover moissanite. Wife loves it, and the price
was somewhere in the ballpark of 90-95% cheaper than an equivalent size
diamond. The added benefit is, everyone thinks it’s a diamond and we haven’t
yet felt the need to correct them...

~~~
CrazyStat
I also went with moissanite. My wife (then girlfriend) was in the "2-3 months
salary for a diamond" camp which I find incredibly crass. Saved $15k on the
diamond by going with moissanite and spent a fraction of that on getting a
nice custom ring + wedding band made by an independent local jeweler instead.
I was happy to support a local craftsman rather than DeBeers & co.

~~~
elcomet
Did you tell her about the nature of the stone ?

That sounds like a disaster to come if she doesn't know, and she learns it by
going to the jeweler to clean / repair the stone.

~~~
raverbashing
Life Pro-Tip: don't marry a woman that will feel unvalued by the stone in the
wedding ring.

Spend the money in something better and that will further the relationship,
like the honeymoon.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Better yet, stick it in an index tracker fund for 30 years and when you’re 60
you’ll have a million in the bank.

Which you won’t spend anyway because you’ll have nothing and no one to spend
it on. But smugness and pride are truly priceless.

~~~
CrazyStat
60x return in say 35 years is a pretty damn good index fund, can you tell me
where to get that?

~~~
simonh
I suppose technically the post doesn’t specify a currency.

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Animats
It's hard to take diamonds seriously any more. This is a diamond factory in
China.[1] That's the "high pressure high temperature" process, a huge room of
very strongly built presses. There's also the "controlled vapor deposition"
process. Alibaba has huge lots of diamonds produced that way. Those are real
diamonds. Mostly. You may get cubic zirconia.

Cubic zirconia is so cheap that those stones come in plastic bags and are sold
in lots of 1000.

Distinguishing CVD diamonds from natural diamonds is getting harder each year.
The diamond industry treats flawless, clear diamonds as the ideal, and that's
what CVD produces best - perfect crystals with only carbon. It's based on a
process from semiconductor manufacturing. Distinguishing good CVD diamonds
from natural now requires rather elaborate equipment.

[1] [https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-manufacturer-
Di...](https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-manufacturer-Diamond-
Cubic-Press-with_62019698980.html)

~~~
basch
The only real benefit to distinguishing is to pay more for the same thing. A
person asking to prove something is "real" is literally volunteering to
overpay.

Imagine having two ot of the otherwise same thing in front of you but one
comes with an optional marketing hype tax.

------
dannyw
We should crowdfund a PR campaign that diamonds are synonyms for death and
exploitation, and it’s more humane for “any gem but a diamond”.

A $10 million campaign or so, targeting youth especially, can have tremendous
impacts on future generations.

~~~
jatgoodwin
Except the diamonds discussed in the article are from Botswana, where the
article states "the firm paid the Botswanan government eighty-five million
dollars in taxes, and nearly thirty million in royalties, on profits of about
a hundred and eighty-five million."

Seems pretty good deal for the Botswanans.

~~~
arczyx
To be fair, paying the government in taxes and royalty does not mean that the
diamond is not obtained through exploitation of the local population while the
corrupt officials took the money (this sometimes happened in my country).

I don't really know about Botswana though, if those money actually go to the
Botswanans then good for them.

~~~
grecy
> _I don 't really know about Botswana though, if those money actually go to
> the Botswanans then good for them._

Botswana is probably the best run and least corrupt country in Southern Africa
(maybe all of Africa). They've never had a war of any kind, are incredibly
friendly to everyone regardless of skin color, etc. etc.

They are famous for tricking the British into giving them mineral rights
before they were granted independence, and have used that money wisely the
benefit the local people. Huge success story, and fantastic country.

~~~
tacheiordache
We, Romanians are very emotionally attached to Botswana’s currency. It means
in Romanian, the most important thing men pride themselves with.

------
devin
Fantastic article. Before you make a comment about the diamond industry, read
the whole thing. I’ve had the same view, but this article moved me.

Also, the audio version is wonderfully read. Recommended.

~~~
quickthrower2
As always, beware that the article might be biased. I don't think it is too
tinfoil to suspect that the diamond industry does good PR.

------
ggm
E.J. Epstein's "the death of the diamond" was a great read. But, since 1984 is
long behind us, kind of wrong.

I had no idea how much bort the world consumes. Industrial diamonds are ..
industrial. Hard to feel romantic about drill bits and cutting saws.

Also the simplicity of the financials to lend liz Taylor the dough to buy the
diamond .. Who actually bought it if the money came from the shop?

~~~
pmart123
Well, push the commodity price to the limit. LVMH designing purses with
diamond studs? Bedazzled dresses? Jewelry shifting more to intricate designs,
brand increasing in importance, and more use of gold or platinum?

If a girl in Iowa can easily get a 3 carat diamond ring, what will the girl in
New York now want?

------
bruceb
One way to shake up the industry is just not to buy diamond wedding rings.
That simple.

Big rocks on a finger make the person seem needy and insecure. Like I need
this big flashy thing is proof of my worth.

~~~
jtms
Anecdotally, many younger couples I know are going with lab made stones or
gemstones other than diamonds.

~~~
greenonions
I bought my wife a simple gold band. We were students. I told her how
Americans spend so much money on diamonds and she was like, "that's stupid,
you could go on such a good vacation and have nice food."

------
brian-armstrong
This article is absolutely an advertisement for the subject company. It is an
interesting article but when reading it please keep in mind that it is not
objective about its subject and is being used to promote a pro-diamond agenda.

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pacamara619
Is it possible to artificially create diamonds so that they have defects which
make them slightly blue in colour?

~~~
Aunche
Yeah. You can get artificial diamonds of pretty much every color. They aren't
super popular though because everyone will assume that the diamond is
artificial or even fake because natural blue diamonds cost $1 million.

------
jacobwilliamroy
What do you do with your diamonds? Are they supposed to have nice
piezoelectric properties or something?

~~~
BlueTemplar
Well, it's one of the hardest known materials...

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
I found an excerpt from geology.com about uses for lab-grown diamonds:

"wear-resistant bearings, heat sinks for computer processors, and high-
temperature windows."

~~~
BlueTemplar
> heat sinks

Wow, I forgot about that - looks like that you can buy one of the best thermal
pastes out there for VERY reasonable prices... and it's 90%+ diamond !!

------
demosito666
The right way to shake this industry would be to obliterate it completely.
Finding another useless piece of glass and selling it for $$$ is not shaking
anything.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Society would have to work to convince people that status symbols are not
worth pursuing. Unfortunately, based on my experience of how people’s brains
work, that is quite an uphill battle.

~~~
paganel
People over here in Europe are not that hung up on diamonds. Not saying we
don’t care about status symbols, because we most certainly do, just wanted to
point out that it’s definetely doable to “eliminate” diamonds from the “status
showing” game.

------
anonu
Really cool history. Thanks for sharing this.

I can imagine if you "know the truth" about the business you're in you might
want to get out. I felt like that about certain financial jobs I've had in the
past. The actual work felt like it provided no real value to society, but the
intellectual challenges were what kept me there.

~~~
vostok
That's interesting. I actually feel quite differently about my own experience
in finance.

HFT is a great example mentioned by a sibling comment. You kind of need some
number of traders out there to make sure that market prices are honest and
fair. HFT has done a great job of reducing (a) the number of people involved
in trading per dollar traded and (b) the amount of money made by traders per
dollar traded.

~~~
skrebbel
I'm very far from the finance world so please correct me if I'm saying
something stupid.

But how does eg an algorithm that sells stock when the newspaper headlines
have a "negative sentiment" help ensure that "market prices are honest and
fair"? What's "honest and fair" about stocks across the board dropping because
of bushfires or a virus outbreak, only to rise back to pre-headline levels
half a day later?

~~~
amylene
The best way to make a correct prediction is to continually update your
estimate as new information comes in. As it comes in. That’s all the markets
are doing.

When the virus starts, the markets adjust downwards because there is a chance
that virus kills tens of millions, which would have severe economic impact.

As the world public health starts to reduce the error bars or bad outcome
likelihood, the market adjusts.

The problem is that you’re thinking of something as having a concrete value.
Instead, think like Tetlock teaches in superforecasters. Then you will have a
better model of what’s going on.

