Raining Diamonds

My boyfriend just showed me an old Wired story about using manufactured diamonds as semiconductors for computer chips. Basically chip speed is hitting a wall because silicon can't handle any more heat without melting. Diamond has the highest thermal conductivity of any substance known to man. Which means that it would be ideal to replace silicon in computer manufacturing. You may be able to guess the problem with this: A diamond large enough to build a chip on would be massively expensive. So a couple of enterprising companies have developed processes to create synthetic diamonds. Not cubic zirconia, diamonds. Grown in a lab but indistinguishable from natural diamonds produced by massive heat and pressure in the earth's crust.

The diamond industry is controlled by De Beers Diamond Trading Company. They've held this monopoly for 115 years, and they've done a lot of nasty things to keep it. Their favorite trick these days is hoarding diamonds to create artificial scarcity, driving up the price of diamonds. They also coined the phrase A Diamond Is Forever to keep people from passing engagement rings from generation to generation. If your grandmother was buried in hers, you have De Beers to thank. They are terrified of the synthetic stones. De Beers is developing expensive tests to detect synthetic stones and sending the equipment to jewelers around the world, free of charge. The companies that produce the stones are higly secretive and take extensive security measures. They expect De Beers to cause problems.

I hate De Beers. I also love diamonds. One of my greatest dreams is to pull off a heist in the De Beers vaults, steal all the diamonds they're holding in reserve, and flood the market with them. I wouldn't even sell them. I'd just give them away: fling them off rooftops, leave them on car windshields, offer them free with purchase of a Big Mac. Until every man, woman, and child had one of their very own. The bottom would drop out of the diamond market, De Beers would go bankrupt, and several African civil wars might end.

But for all of that, when I get engaged, I want a "real" diamond. There's something almost magical about the natural formation of a diamond, about the fact that nature can accidentally produce these brilliant and indestructible gems. I'll foil De Beers by getting a vintage ring, making sure they don't get a cut of my happiness, but it will still have been mined. It will still have been owned by De Beers at some point. Be better than me. Don't buy into the advertising that I must have bought into. Get your cultured diamond from Gemesis or Apollo. Your stone will be better than mine. Mine will have inclusions. It may not be perfectly white. Your stone will be flawless.