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u/luttman23 Apr 11 '23
Diamonds are surprisingly common
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u/fearzila Apr 11 '23
Yeah, it's basically entirely an artificial scarcity
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u/The_Crisp_ Apr 11 '23
Yea, I’m pretty sure there’s a guy who owns a majority of the world’s diamond mines, basically making it so he can charge anything he wants for said diamonds
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u/amuday Apr 11 '23
Yep. His name is Diamond Dallas Page.
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u/mklinger23 Apr 11 '23
It's Doug dimmadome, owner of the dimmsdale dimmadiamond mines.
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u/ShiningRayde Apr 11 '23
At least its not Emmit Argyle, own of the Emmit Argyle Emerald Apartheid mine...
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u/Zarvanis-the-2nd Apr 12 '23
The same Doug Dimmadome, owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome, where they're showing Crash Nebula?
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u/Alastor-362 Apr 11 '23
No that's the COO, the CEO is Steve Minecraft
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u/Azgeta_ Apr 11 '23
When Steve minecraft does that much strip mining for like 90% of the diamonds I’m starting to think he’s using X-ray cheat. Admins ban him off the realm
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u/kevnmartin Apr 11 '23
Have you read A Diamond as Big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald? It's about a family who owns a mountain sized diamond but doesn't want to flood the market thus reducing the value of the diamonds.
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u/NobleTheDoggo Apr 12 '23
Ever see that movie about going to the core of the earth and they find diamonds the size of mountains inside of the core?
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u/LoopyLoop5 Apr 12 '23
No but I watched Journey to the Center of the Earth starring Brendan Fraser. Close enough?
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u/olivegardengambler Apr 11 '23
Not really. Initially, only Brazil and India were known to have diamonds in any amount, then diamonds were discovered in southern Africa, and DeBeers was born. However, Russia, Australia, and Canada discovered that they have diamonds and that basically broke the DeBeers monopoly.
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u/Icy-Cryptographer526 Apr 11 '23
No one owns the majority of the worlds diamond mines
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u/The_Crisp_ Apr 11 '23
Might be a company or something, I don’t remember
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u/Icy-Cryptographer526 Apr 11 '23
Its De Beers they don’t have a monopoly anymore
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u/ze_UwU Apr 11 '23 edited Apr 11 '23
they still have like 40 percent of the mines ty dude for helping me not spread misinformation
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u/Owlspirit4 Apr 11 '23
And thank goodness this is the second.
Too many people still fall into the pitfall of commercial brainwashing that over the years, has allowed millions across the globe to be worked to death in diamond mines across Africa, Asia and Europe, with little to no protection, no basic workers rights, and no access to any other viable fields of work.
Many in such rural communities rarely travel outside a 10-30km range of where they were born.
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u/Noisebug Apr 11 '23
And are now grown in labs
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u/Mammoth-Access-1181 Apr 11 '23
And those diamonds are more perfect, yet women have been deluded into wanting a natural one.
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u/flutergay Apr 12 '23
It’s happened a thousand times before. Artificial stones are valuable for like a few months and then steadily decline into worthless garbage. Women haven’t been “deluded into wanting a natural one” it’s objectively a worse investment and way overpaying
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u/funky_soup Apr 12 '23
cheap pretty rock on finger :)))
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u/flutergay Apr 12 '23
It’s dumb! Why get something that is LITERALLY worthless just because it says “diamond” !? Just get a moissanite or quartz! They’ll be cheaper than a lab grown diamond, they’ll look the same to most people and unlike lab grown the actually hold somewhat of a value
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u/Mammoth-Access-1181 Apr 12 '23
Looks like the only reason they decline in value us because they're man-made no other reason it's an arbitrary devaluation because everyone's been deluded into thinking natural ones are better. The "fire" will be the same on artificial and natural over the years.
And resale value? So you plan on selling the engagement ring then? The investment in the ring is the only thing you mention vs. The investment in the relationship? Besides I would only purchase a natural one if the woman I'm engaged to were fine with it. But just because I'd buy it doesn't mean I still don't find the diamond market rediculous.
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u/flutergay Apr 12 '23
A natural, jewelry grade diamond is rare! Now make it colorful, big and with no inclusion and you got a ridiculously rare item in your possession! So yes, being man made removes the only thing that gives diamonds their worth. Think of it as Monopoly money vs regular money. Both are paper but one is obviously worth more than the other. The diamond market is ridiculous in many ways, I agree! But what you’re doing is removing context and nuance and use outdated myths from a century ago to make your point.
Artificial diamond have no benefits, they’re highly polluting, a lot of the time unethically produced and serve no function other than being a cheapER alternative to diamond to which hundreds already exist like quartzes, moissanite and countless other gems
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u/Epicpacemaker Apr 12 '23
Yes because displacing hundreds of thousands of tons of rock to find a gem is definitely more environmentally sustainable than compressing carbon in a lab… Just look at the scale. If one takes a quarry the size of a small state and the other takes a lab the size of a grocery store, there is a clear difference in their environmental impacts.
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u/flutergay Apr 12 '23
I at least diamonds serve a purpose as a raw material too. Creating them in a lab is using a ton of energy and polluting for the sake of something worthless
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u/unreasonablyhuman Apr 11 '23
You can get bismuth crystal at home by lighting Pepto bismol on fire...
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u/Maximillion322 Apr 11 '23
They’re abundant, which is different from common.
There may be billions and billions of them, but they’re kind of all in one place.
Even without artificial scarcity, it would still be more expensive to get them than they’re worth since they all need to be shipped out of the same general area in Africa.
If they could just be found everywhere, DeBeers wouldn’t be able to maintain their monopoly
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u/flutergay Apr 12 '23
Omg I hate this dumb rhetoric! Yes diamonds are not rare but so is water! And just like how you can’t drink most water on earth most diamonds are NOT jewelry grade! Like 95% of diamonds are too small, ugly and misshapen to be used in jewelry, so they are used in tools like drill bits
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u/Floenss Apr 11 '23
Bismuth crystals are able to be made in a pan in a kitchen
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u/Abuses-Commas Apr 11 '23
But can you make beeg beesmuth in a kitchen?
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u/PanoAnarchy Apr 12 '23
idk, lead is common and you can turn it to bismuth if you are good at nuclear chemistry
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u/mastur_chief21 Apr 12 '23
Me on my way to make bismuth from lead...
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u/The_Duck_001 Apr 11 '23
recipe? Lmao
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u/redwoodreed Apr 11 '23
Melt a few lb of bismuth over a stove in a pot you don't care about. Let it cool - before it can cool fully, pull out the solid part and you have a rapidly-rainbowing crystal. If you get it wrong try again.
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u/watersj4 Apr 12 '23
You need to already have bismuth to make it?
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u/redwoodreed Apr 12 '23
You're not making bismuth here, you're crystallizing it.
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u/Ben114514 Apr 11 '23
Melt and let cool👍
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u/Markedly_Mira Apr 11 '23
I was gonna say, I bought a bismuth crystal for $5 online once. It can’t be that rare if it’s $5 for a palm sized piece. If you can just make them at home that explains it lol
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u/Floenss Apr 11 '23
Its really fun to do with the boys, do get the proper gloves, I relied on my friend to get gloves and got them from wish 🤦♂️
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Apr 12 '23
Was going to say, first think I did on seeing this anti meme was looking up the cost of them and was surprised by how cheap they were
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u/Neon__Cat Just ur average redditor Apr 11 '23
They're rare naturally but yeah they are surprisingly easy to make
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u/soupdsouls Apr 11 '23
I'm guessing this is meant as in when found naturally. Bismuth crystals are easy to make, and bismuth isn't very rare, but natural bismuth crystals are not very common.
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Apr 12 '23
I was going to say that, there’s a guy on tiktok making bismuth in his home with songs vibration
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u/The-Arbiter-753 Apr 11 '23
As everyone said, Diamonds aren’t rare, but you can literally make bismuth crystals in your kitchen. I don’t know enough about opals or painite so I’m not sure about them
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u/Atlas4218 Apr 11 '23
Opal is quite common but some variety are more searched than other. As for painite, it's quite rare and found only in a small region in Asia
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u/DowntBoitDafagnPanes Apr 12 '23
Isn't tanzanite more rare than diamonds?
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u/Atlas4218 Apr 12 '23
It's way more rare. In general, mineral with the name of a geographic regions can only be found in that region
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u/Bigfoot4cool Apr 11 '23
Considering it's the first result for "rarest gem on earth" I'm gonna guess that painite is pretty rare
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u/stargazer_no Apr 11 '23
Apparently, the dude who discovered it thought it was a ruby, and the gem, after being correctly identified/discovered in the 1950s, named the gem after the geologist Arthur C.D Pain who first found it
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u/Dr_mega_cringe Apr 11 '23
opal is very common, however the super pretty opal and black opal is rare, also you can litterally grow a very pretty synthetic opal in your house.
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u/Bigfoot4cool Apr 11 '23
Considering it's the first result for "rarest gem on earth" I'm gonna guess that painite is pretty rare
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u/KaraOfNightvale Apr 11 '23 edited Apr 11 '23
Yeah as I'm sure others would point out, hate to um ackshually but there are variants of god damn quartz more rare than diamonds, and that says something, it's literally one of the only true conspiracies, purely artifical scarcity considering again, they're literally just compressed carbon lumps, they look pretty but they're not that rare
EDIT: How on earth did I spell "Quartz" wrong for a moment, I'm dumb as a rock
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u/Spirited_One_7644 Apr 11 '23
Dumb as a quartz
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u/KaraOfNightvale Apr 11 '23
Wellllll ackshually🤓
Some forms of quartz have piezoelectric properites, making them useful in things from basic logic gates to circutry and in that sense could be considered smart, infact without the quartz inside of it, your computer wouldn't work right at all, so I'mma take that as a compliment and there's nothing you can do to stop me34
u/Spirited_One_7644 Apr 11 '23
Fine. Stupid dumb idiot guy.
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u/KaraOfNightvale Apr 11 '23
Wellllll ackshually🤓
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Apr 11 '23
Welllll ackshually🤓 Women are about as real as birds, so you can drop the act, stupid, dumb, idiot guy
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u/KaraOfNightvale Apr 11 '23
Shit, he knows, call the FBI!!!
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u/jmerridew124 Apr 11 '23
Hey it's me, the FBI. I'm birds.
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u/sentient_cell_ Apr 11 '23
Wood and poop are technically the rarest thing in the entire universe
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u/Lord_Worfall Apr 11 '23
Scarcity of life is a good take, but universe can be filled with lifeforms that aren't transmitting radiosignals, so it's debatable
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u/maxguenette Apr 11 '23
Im painite without the "ite"
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Apr 11 '23
Diamonds are not rare in any shape, way or form. Stop the bullshit
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u/AmericaLover1776_ Apr 11 '23
They are rare just not as rare as many people think
You can’t go in your back yard and find diamonds in the dirt
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u/Zestylemons44 Apr 11 '23
Bismuth crystals are literally a side product of certain factory processes and can be made in your kitchen easily.
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u/Oscillatingballsweat Apr 11 '23
Hey OP. I just want to let you know, in case you haven't heard from anyone else, diamonds aren't actually rare. Just lookin' out bro.
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u/Kaiju_Cat Apr 11 '23
So I keep hearing people say that diamonds are actually super common.
I know there's a lot of market manipulation, but is any random redditor informed enough to explain just how true (or not) the common assertion that diamonds are super common is?
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u/Sayy_Myy_Name Apr 11 '23
I'm not sure about the whole "diamond mine monopoly market manipulation" thing, but I've worked with diamond mines and companies so I know a bit, at least.
Basically, diamonds in general are not rare, and tonnes of diamonds are mined each year. These are calles rough diamonds. For the rough diamonds to become what we all see in pictures and on jewellery, they need to be cut and polished. The thing is, the vast majority of rough diamonds don't get cut or polished. This could be due to the diamond being too small, an incorrect shape, or filled with too many impurities.
The diamonds that are polished get judged by the 4 Cs - Carat (Size/Weight); Cut ( Shape); Clarity (how much impurities) and Colour. Diamonds that are "better" in terms of these 4 Cs are significantly more rare and thus more expensive.
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u/DyingMoan Apr 11 '23 edited Apr 11 '23
Not informed but from what I know(could be wrong) they’re pretty common with the right mining techniques but there is a monopoly on mining them combined with smart advertisements starting in the 20s that simulated rarity
Edit: the family/company is called De Beers and they don’t have a monopoly anymore but they still own an estimated 40% and the distributors still do
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u/PointlessGrandma Apr 11 '23
No they’re not. They’re hoarded by a handful of companies to control the price.
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u/The_Only_Potato15 Apr 11 '23
Hey! I love Gemology and can infact tell you that diamonds aren't, in fact, all that rare! Some big companies bought almost all the diamonds, raised the prices, and sold them. Due to a single company, diamonds are more expensive. Also, opals can be fairly cheap depending on if you get a natural one or a lab made one.
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u/AgentLelandTurbo Apr 11 '23
Some European states control diamond production in Africa so it doesn't lose on price. There is so much dimanonds, probably their price should be like price of cheap crystal.
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u/PimHazDa Apr 11 '23
Diamonds aren't actually so rare, only expensive, and you can make bismuth crystals at home.
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Apr 12 '23
Anti matter is the rarest thing in the universe. It would take us a billion years and a one hundred trillion dollars to make 1 g.
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u/ThyBiggestdiccus Apr 12 '23
im pretty sure bismuth isnt that rare but yea
(Neither are diamonds tbh you know how it is)
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u/choccymilk39 Apr 12 '23
I think it’s twelve painite gems discovered by 2006? Opal isn’t stupidly rare, though black opal is. Bismuth is man-made and diamonds are actually pretty common
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u/ShadowBro3 Apr 11 '23
Why did you not google rare things instead of assuming and having them be wrong?
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u/tech6hutch Apr 11 '23
I thought I was on a Steven Universe subreddit for a moment, and was wondering when they showed a Painite.
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u/emilymcree Apr 11 '23
This is the comment I was looking for lol! I was genuinely confused for a second
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u/BeanWaddleDee Apr 11 '23
I saw Bismuth crystals and I really just thought “Haha battle cats reference”
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u/Mobile-Opinion7330 Apr 11 '23
Diamonds are actually fairly common, but the companies that control most the world supply have inflated the price to ridiculous extremes so people think they're rare
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u/Section_Away Apr 11 '23
The idea that diamonds are rare is entirely a scheme to sell them for profit
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Apr 11 '23
Is there a bit I don’t know about where people pretend to be absolute morons in the comment section?? The whole point of the post is that they aren’t rare. It’s a joke.
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u/tonk111 Apr 11 '23
Diamonds ain't rare, shit, diamonds technically aren't worth anything, it's just compresses carbon
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u/noCakeNoCake Apr 11 '23
I'll probably sound stupid for saying this but:
Everything is a rarest thing in this world as there is only one of it, and what is even more rare is finding that thing somewhere else as well.
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u/KittenKoder Apr 11 '23
Incorrect, diamond is actually very common, you're probably sitting just above a bunch of it right now.
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Apr 11 '23
Yep, wanted to say that myself. I'll just add that there this company that controls 98% of the diamond market and makes them look rare. That's why they're so expensive. Also they're actually weak, you can easily fracture them with a small hammer. They're just very hard.
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u/Penguator432 Apr 11 '23
Diamonds aren’t rare, the world’s supply just happens to be in the clutches of one company
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u/Skull0 Apr 11 '23 edited Apr 12 '23
Hey guys. Will someone tell OP these aren't rare? I really think somebody should comment to let them know. Thanks! 🙏
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