A piece on Slashdot today says that a company called Adia Diamonds is finally getting some lab-grown diamonds out and into people’s hands. My hope is that in a few years you’ll be able to get man-made diamonds much more easily than you can today and we don’t have to depend on DeBeers’s monopoly for our shiny stuff. I’ll spare the lecture on why DeBeers is one of the most evil companies in the world, profiting from the slaughter of lots and lots of people, especially in Africa, to sell a gem that isn’t even all that rare.
Some good reading on the topic:
- Wired: The New Diamond Age, about the rise of man-made diamonds, which are exactly like natural diamonds in every way, except cheaper and more perfect.
- The Atlantic: Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?, about how DeBeers tricked the ladies of the world into needing diamonds in the first place.