Weird peeve time. Calling lab grown gemstones “fake” is stupid because it’s the same shit just not formed naturally. An artificially grown diamond is the same shit as a natural diamond it is the exact same material bro it’s all fuckign carbon
There is so much bullshit in the diamonds industry to be mad about tbh. It also ties into the bullshit of the wedding industry as a whole but we don’t have the time to unpack all that
not even going to lie, the day i learned i could get like 15 lab grown rubies the size of dimes for $20 is the day i spent $20 on rubies, and i have never once said to myself “man, i wish this cost $1,600 and the lives of eight children to produce”
another very cool lab grown gem is Moissanite. It has a 9.25 on the mohs hardness scale where diamond is a 10. Moissanote also has a 2.69 refractive index in comparison to diamond’s 2.419 and here is the difference
and the best thing about moissanite? It is all lab grown and it costs only a fraction of what diamond costs. So fuck the diamond indsutry and buy lab grown gems which cost significantly less
Also it’s just cool to think of some mad scientist lookin person doing shit against the law of the universe and making pretty gems for you. Like cmon. This shouldnt be allowed probably. But humans really be like on gOD i want some shiny an just started MAKIN em
for years people wanted alchemy, well now we have alchemy and we’re making gemstones out of it and suddenly “it doesn’t count” anymore
Tags:
#…there’s something interesting here about the clash between gems-as-decorative-shinies and gems-as-store-of-value #if you were wearing jewellery because it was beautiful then increased availability is an improvement #but if you were wearing jewellery to display wealth‚ and jewellery becomes cheap‚ then it ceases to fulfil its function #more sympathetically‚ if you used to take comfort in the idea that if you ever hit financial rock bottom #–(and‚ especially‚ if you were ever cut off from access to the local financial system)– #you’d be able to get by through pawning your jewellery‚ and jewellery becomes cheap‚ you’ve lost that safety net #(a safety net your ancestors and/or past selves paid good money for‚ money now wasted) #((a few months back I had my mom help me go through the jewellery I’ve accumulated as gifts over the decades #and figure out which ones are valuable and which ones are costume)) #((I store the valuable ones separately from the others so that I can grab the container and run)) #((because silver is a better trade good than steel even if they’re equally shiny)) #((the world is full of stories of refugees who got the starting funds for a new life by selling the jewellery they wore when they escaped)) #I know a whole lot of people place a whole lot more value on decoration than I do #so I expect cheap gemstones are still *net* good #but I see the downsides here #tag rambles #jewellery #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #adventures in human capitalism #proud citizen of The Future #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #death tw? #this probably deserves some other warning tag but I am not sure what