Conflict-free Diamonds?

[ola.]

What do you guys think of the promotion and sale of supposedly conflict-free diamonds, as opposed to blood diamonds?

Personally, I remember back when I was looking for an engagement ring for my wife, and I came across all these "ethical corporations" which sold "ethically-sourced" jewelry such as Beautiful Earth, Zales, Blue Niles, whatever.

The definition of blood diamonds goes as “rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments” - this, however, seems like a very specific and narrow definition which excludes diamonds produced in areas where civil war does not exist and doesn't seem as concerned with other human rights abuses involved in diamond mining such as low paid wages, slave and child labor, environmental destruction, etc. Much of the goods we consume have an ugly story behind them but we don't think about them because we take them for granted.

Diamonds are certainly not the only minerals we exploit from war torn areas such as Congo or Uganda - we also make use of the countries' gold, copper, cobalt, coltan, tin, tungsten, zinc, manganese, magnesium, uranium, niobium, gold, diamonds, and silver. These minerals are needed to make jet engines, cars, missiles, computers, cell-phones, electronic components, iron and steel, as well as required in fibre optics and in other military and high-tech production. So I'm just wondering why the attention is solely focused on the diamonds?

Looking for whatever thoughts you guys may have on this issue.

[Redistribute the Rep]

The price of diamonds is artificially high due to the De Beers global diamond monopoly, I say we all just buy synthetic diamonds.

Or better yet, when your loved ones or pets die, you can compress their ashes into a diamond:
http://www.lifegem.com/

[Loony Le Fist]

Either way the price of diamonds is jacked up. They aren't as scarce as they are made to be through cartels, regardless of whether they are considered conflict-free. Plus, the idea of giving a diamond ring as an engagement gift or as some other showy, meaningless material gift to show off how much money you can spend is bourgeois. It is an idea that plays right into corporatist, materialist propaganda.

NOTE: This is coming from an ex-libertarian who gave my first fiance a huge diamond as an engagement present. I ended up taking it back. :ohmy:

[Slavic]

Plus, the idea of giving a diamond ring as an engagement gift or as some other showy, meaningless material gift to show off how much money you can spend is bourgeois. It is an idea that plays right into corporatist, materialist propaganda.

Everything that you buy that isn't related to food or shelter is meaningless material goods. So if the man wants to buy his fiance a diamond, they he can buy her a diamond.


For my ex wife I bought a synthetic stone from gemesis. Each stone is made in essentially a pressure cooker but they still look fantastic. You can individually select the stone you want and the price is decent.

[Loony Le Fist]

Everything that you buy that isn't related to food or shelter is meaningless material goods. So if the man wants to buy his fiance a diamond, they he can buy her a diamond.


Sure. People can do whatever they want and have their own reasons for things. But it is inescapable that, generally, whole reason people feel the need to give a diamond engagement ring is mostly due to propaganda. It is basically part of a massive marketing campaign (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/fashion/weddings/how-americans-learned-to-love-diamonds.html?_r=0) by De Beers and others to sell this semi-precious stone. I'm happy that my current wife feels the same way.

[Dagoth Ur]

This is commodified activism and feel-good sentimentalism. "Buy our diamonds, they're oppression free! You're really helping poor Africans not rich jewelers". And the world keeps on turning.

[consuming negativity]

Diamonds should come with a little picture of the starving, exploited child who mined it. With a little card, that says "Thanks to you, this boy was able to find a job mining diamonds at gunpoint for 50 cents a month."

Activists around the world sigh with relief. "I'm doing my part to make the world a better place" he says, after having spent three of his paychecks on a rock for a woman he's been seeing for as many months. "When I buy diamonds, I know that money is going to a company that respects workers around the world."

I suppose the intention behind it is good...

[Dagoth Ur]

The intention is not good. It is shallow and without any meaning.

Also are you rootless?

[Redistribute the Rep]

Everything that you buy that isn't related to food or shelter is meaningless material goods. So if the man wants to buy his fiance a diamond, they he can buy her a diamond.


For my ex wife I bought a synthetic stone from gemesis. Each stone is made in essentially a pressure cooker but they still look fantastic. You can individually select the stone you want and the price is decent.

Well, diamonds do have industrial uses, as they are very hard and good for cutting things, however we can make synthetic ones which are cheaper and harder for these purposes. So it's not really "meaningless"

[The Intransigent Faction]

I've shared this elsewhere, but it's pretty relevant here:

N5kWu1ifBGU

I'm all for *class-conflict free* diamonds. Frankly I don't give a crap about them either way, but if people still want them for one reason or another, simply not buying "blood diamonds" is another one of those consumer boycott trends that doesn't address the heart of the problem.

Simply put, it's another one of those intrinsically worthless things that people fawn over in the way they do as a result of systemic social conditioning. The best way to stop blood diamonds is to work on changing the way we look at "non-essential" commodities in our society to begin with.

I'm well aware this is probably beating a dead horse and a solution that we almost certainly won't see in our lifetimes, but it's the only *real* solution given the obvious problems with "voting with your wallet".

[Prometeo liberado]

If you're willing to even entertain the thought of any kind of "conflict free" (insert your cause de jour here) then you are either foolish or liberal but probably both.
Conflict and contradiction are what defines the struggle.
You should know this.

[tachosomoza]

A diamond obtained from a mine where people work in horrible conditions to make Nicky Oppenheimer richer is just as bloody as one from a mine run by a native warlord.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Simply put, it's another one of those intrinsically worthless things that people fawn over in the way they do as a result of systemic social conditioning.

Or because they like shiny rocks.

Seriously, what is it with the hair-shirt asceticism in this thread? Moaning about how the Evil Advertising Media Machine is making people like things you don't want them to like isn't communism, it's rotten liberalism of the worst sort.

[brigadista]

Gold and silver are also not good to buy if you don't know where they were mined - just as exploitative - jewelry from other peoples misery - not a hair shirt - reality

[Lily Briscoe]

Gold and silver are also not good to buy if you don't know where they were mined - just as exploitative - jewelry from other peoples misery - not a hair shirt - reality

I hope you've never purchased a cell phone, PC, or any electronics...



Seriously, what is it with the hair-shirt asceticism in this thread? Moaning about how the Evil Advertising Media Machine is making people like things you don't want them to like isn't communism, it's rotten liberalism of the worst sort.
Yeah but something tells me that if this thread were about, say, playstations rather than jewelry, most of the "hair shirt ascetics" would suddenly be taking a strikingly different approach.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Or because they like shiny rocks.

Seriously, what is it with the hair-shirt asceticism in this thread? Moaning about how the Evil Advertising Media Machine is making people like things you don't want them to like isn't communism, it's rotten liberalism of the worst sort.

...Huh? What asceticism (for the record, if someone chooses to live an ascetic lifestyle even in a postscarcity economy, that's their prerogative---and not really a negative or particularly irrational one in contrast to the feverish consumption insisted upon in capitalism)? I tried to make it as painfully clear as possible (and even stated explicitly) that I don't give a shit whether people like diamonds or not. It's one thing to like shiny rocks because they're shiny rocks, though, and it's another thing to like them for, um, their artificially higher "worth" in a society where a corporation exercises control over the supply. If you're denying the role of capitalism in trying to convince people of the trumped-up importance of possessing certain commodities which act as status symbols due to artificially inflated value, or conversely in shelling out lower-quality stuff than could otherwise be produced, then I don't know what fucking planet you're from.

For the record, a PlayStation is a lousy analogy, not because I'm biased and place some worth in them because I like them (I don't), but because they serve a certain purpose that goes beyond acting as an expensive status symbol we're convinced we just "have to have". Seriously, if not for patriarchal and capitalistic social structures, the attitude toward diamonds and sense of importance in acquiring them would be very different. If anything, liberals would have a harder time understanding that.

So to reiterate in case it's necessary, nobody's gonna stop you from collecting shiny rocks, but the only reason that's viewed differently from collecting seashells is, in short, capitalism and patriarchy.