My friend, this is a stunning piece of work. The timing is funny because I literally fell down this exact hole and used diamonds as an example of manufactured demand in one of my notes' replies. Also, coincidentally, I JUST read this piece on diamonds too, lol, from @Haretina: https://xaretinak.substack.com/p/shine-bright-like-a-diamond-why-they. Is everyone on the diamond train this week?
It's honestly kind of crazy how "forever means never resold" might be the greatest example anyone has ever built of a default engineered to keep a secondary market from ever forming, so the invented price never has to meet a real one. I think about recyclers and refurbishers and secondary markets a lot, that whole world where value gets tested when a thing comes back around, and someone has to bid on it again. Based on what I'm reading here...diamonds basically nuked that entire process on purpose. No resale market, no honest price discovery, no second life for the object, just a drawer it's supposed to sit in forever. Appreciate the insightful and epic read!
Haretina's piece is great, and it's more fun to travel on the diamond train with friends and fellow writers. Let's see where this leads.
And you've expressed it perfectly: "diamonds basically nuked that entire process on purpose. No resale market, no honest price discovery, no second life for the object, just a drawer it's supposed to sit in forever."
Epic and you are setting the bar higher. Golconda Fort in all its majesty, is 4 kilometres from my home. I have been there multiple times since my childhood and have read about the famed Golconda mines. Thanks you for writing this brilliant peace
Thank you, Srinivas. Four kilometres from Golconda Fort, that is something. You have been walking past the beginning of this whole story your entire life.
Honestly one of the best things I've read this year (your previous essay included haha).
What's most interesting to me is that lab-grown stones are physically identical and the natural one still sells for more. That should have been the moment the illusion broke, but instead it has held.
When a perfect copy appears and people keep paying for the original anyway, you've learned something bigger than diamonds I guess - that the object was never what they were buying. Most industries pray their product survives being copied but it seems De Beers built one that got more valuable the moment it could be.
Funnily enough, I went down this rabbit hole about 4 years ago while me and my now wife were shopping for her wedding ring. A lot of my younger, married friends also came to the same conclusion i.e. lab diamond = real diamond.
Nonetheless, the generations before mine, including my parents, still don't understand/value the difference. Mainly because they are untrusting of it and believe a lab diamond to be a fake diamond. The difference of opinion in generations made me wonder though how much of our older generations have been marketed to so strongly and for such a long time that they struggle to grasp an alternative, and thus get pushed more towards a De Beers. Funny how that works. Full circle moment to the Book/Man that Manipulated the Twentieth Century eh!
Full circle, indeed! And the generational split is the proof of it. Your parents aren't being stubborn, they just grew up with the campaign already in the air. Real versus fake is the exact line the advertising drew, and it worked so well it now reads as common sense rather than something written by a copywriter.
Small correction: lab-grown diamonds aren’t “perfect copies.” They’re real diamonds, but they’re still distinguishable from natural diamonds by their growth signatures. The more interesting question is why people value those differences so differently.
Many years ago, after watching the movie, Blood Diamond, I bought Stefan Kanfers book and loved it.
Andrea Wulfs book was an eye opener. As she mentions in the beginning, for all his contributions and the number of places and natural things named after him. Sadly Humboldt is a forgotten man
Thank you, Srinivas. Humboldt is a figure I admire enormously. A true universal genius, and it is hard to name a field he didn't move forward, from geography and geology to botany, climate science and engineering.
This was a fascinating read. I learnt a lot. Power that you can hold in your fist… they are blood-stained stones indeed. I live in Antwerp, which is famous for its diamond merchants. I will never peer through their windows with the same eyes again!
Power you can hold in your fist, exactly. Thank you, Erin. Antwerp of all places, you're living right in the middle of it. Those windows have a longer history than most people walking past them realise.
Brilliant historical writing. The Soviet history reminded me of the 1960 Soviet film Letters Never Sent, based on a fiction story by Valery Osipov and inspired by real stories Osipov heard from Soviet geologists searching for diamonds through Yakutia, Siberia. It’s an adventure tale that is also an unforgettable work of art.
Thank you, Lisa. Found it on YouTube and I'm a few minutes in. Already looks like a massively important film, and it goes straight to the ground the essay covers. What a discovery, thank you.
One of the reasons this essay has stayed with me is that it gave me another language for something I’ve been trying to articulate in my own work. My focus has been Psychological World-Building—the idea that civilizations, economies, myths, and even magic systems emerge from shared beliefs, fears, and desires. Reading your history of diamonds reinforced that this isn’t just true in fiction. We build worlds in reality the same way: through stories that become collective truths. Thank you again for writing something that has genuinely influenced the way I’m thinking about my own philosophy and where I want to take it.
Reading this feels like an honour and a burden at once. Good to know the essay reached you that deeply, though the responsibility that comes with it weighs heavy too. Chewing on that one.
This is a profound article. What struck me most is that the real commodity wasn’t diamonds—it became belief itself. Once scarcity moved from the mine into the human mind, the story became more valuable than the stone. It reinforced something I’ve been thinking about lately: people don’t just build worlds—they build explanations. Thank you for such a thoughtful read.
Thank you, Jeff. Yes, it became belief itself. People build explanations is a good way to put it, and once one takes hold, hardly anyone bothers checking it against the stone in their hand.
I’m glad this resonated with others. One thing I’m discovering is that the conversations after the article are becoming just as valuable as the article itself. They often push the original idea somewhere I hadn’t considered.
Thank you for the restack—I truly appreciate it. The original piece is what made the conversation possible, and I’m grateful my perspective could become a small part of it. One of my favorite things about this community is watching ideas evolve through respectful dialogue. Every thoughtful response adds another lens, and together we often end up seeing more than any one of us could have seen alone.
Some things never change, do they? Fugger lending diamonds to the royals for the wedding vs. Jewel Ateliers lending diamonds to celebrities for galas. Propaganda to make diamonds seem rare and expensive vs. the modern association of diamonds with 'love' to sell more of them.
What stayed with me was the idea that a diamond can keep its material form while losing almost everything that made it valuable. The Dresden White may still exist in smaller pieces, but once its history is cut away, it becomes ordinary in a way the original stone never was. That makes the whole essay feel less like a history of diamonds than a history of how stories become value.
My friend, this is a stunning piece of work. The timing is funny because I literally fell down this exact hole and used diamonds as an example of manufactured demand in one of my notes' replies. Also, coincidentally, I JUST read this piece on diamonds too, lol, from @Haretina: https://xaretinak.substack.com/p/shine-bright-like-a-diamond-why-they. Is everyone on the diamond train this week?
It's honestly kind of crazy how "forever means never resold" might be the greatest example anyone has ever built of a default engineered to keep a secondary market from ever forming, so the invented price never has to meet a real one. I think about recyclers and refurbishers and secondary markets a lot, that whole world where value gets tested when a thing comes back around, and someone has to bid on it again. Based on what I'm reading here...diamonds basically nuked that entire process on purpose. No resale market, no honest price discovery, no second life for the object, just a drawer it's supposed to sit in forever. Appreciate the insightful and epic read!
-Quy
Haretina's piece is great, and it's more fun to travel on the diamond train with friends and fellow writers. Let's see where this leads.
And you've expressed it perfectly: "diamonds basically nuked that entire process on purpose. No resale market, no honest price discovery, no second life for the object, just a drawer it's supposed to sit in forever."
Wow, that was one seriously excellent and epic read.
Thank you, Sean. Started digging and just could not stop. Turned into a treasure hunt.
Actually, it turned into a treasure of its own. Just saying.
Woah! This essay might become a true landmark.
Thank you! Let's see where it goes.
Epic and you are setting the bar higher. Golconda Fort in all its majesty, is 4 kilometres from my home. I have been there multiple times since my childhood and have read about the famed Golconda mines. Thanks you for writing this brilliant peace
Thank you, Srinivas. Four kilometres from Golconda Fort, that is something. You have been walking past the beginning of this whole story your entire life.
Honestly one of the best things I've read this year (your previous essay included haha).
What's most interesting to me is that lab-grown stones are physically identical and the natural one still sells for more. That should have been the moment the illusion broke, but instead it has held.
When a perfect copy appears and people keep paying for the original anyway, you've learned something bigger than diamonds I guess - that the object was never what they were buying. Most industries pray their product survives being copied but it seems De Beers built one that got more valuable the moment it could be.
Funnily enough, I went down this rabbit hole about 4 years ago while me and my now wife were shopping for her wedding ring. A lot of my younger, married friends also came to the same conclusion i.e. lab diamond = real diamond.
Nonetheless, the generations before mine, including my parents, still don't understand/value the difference. Mainly because they are untrusting of it and believe a lab diamond to be a fake diamond. The difference of opinion in generations made me wonder though how much of our older generations have been marketed to so strongly and for such a long time that they struggle to grasp an alternative, and thus get pushed more towards a De Beers. Funny how that works. Full circle moment to the Book/Man that Manipulated the Twentieth Century eh!
Full circle, indeed! And the generational split is the proof of it. Your parents aren't being stubborn, they just grew up with the campaign already in the air. Real versus fake is the exact line the advertising drew, and it worked so well it now reads as common sense rather than something written by a copywriter.
Small correction: lab-grown diamonds aren’t “perfect copies.” They’re real diamonds, but they’re still distinguishable from natural diamonds by their growth signatures. The more interesting question is why people value those differences so differently.
Riveting. As always.
Thank you, Koral. You have been with us from early on, and it means a lot.
Many years ago, after watching the movie, Blood Diamond, I bought Stefan Kanfers book and loved it.
Andrea Wulfs book was an eye opener. As she mentions in the beginning, for all his contributions and the number of places and natural things named after him. Sadly Humboldt is a forgotten man
Thank you, Srinivas. Humboldt is a figure I admire enormously. A true universal genius, and it is hard to name a field he didn't move forward, from geography and geology to botany, climate science and engineering.
This was a fascinating read. I learnt a lot. Power that you can hold in your fist… they are blood-stained stones indeed. I live in Antwerp, which is famous for its diamond merchants. I will never peer through their windows with the same eyes again!
Power you can hold in your fist, exactly. Thank you, Erin. Antwerp of all places, you're living right in the middle of it. Those windows have a longer history than most people walking past them realise.
Brilliant historical writing. The Soviet history reminded me of the 1960 Soviet film Letters Never Sent, based on a fiction story by Valery Osipov and inspired by real stories Osipov heard from Soviet geologists searching for diamonds through Yakutia, Siberia. It’s an adventure tale that is also an unforgettable work of art.
Thank you, Lisa. Found it on YouTube and I'm a few minutes in. Already looks like a massively important film, and it goes straight to the ground the essay covers. What a discovery, thank you.
One of the reasons this essay has stayed with me is that it gave me another language for something I’ve been trying to articulate in my own work. My focus has been Psychological World-Building—the idea that civilizations, economies, myths, and even magic systems emerge from shared beliefs, fears, and desires. Reading your history of diamonds reinforced that this isn’t just true in fiction. We build worlds in reality the same way: through stories that become collective truths. Thank you again for writing something that has genuinely influenced the way I’m thinking about my own philosophy and where I want to take it.
Reading this feels like an honour and a burden at once. Good to know the essay reached you that deeply, though the responsibility that comes with it weighs heavy too. Chewing on that one.
This is a profound article. What struck me most is that the real commodity wasn’t diamonds—it became belief itself. Once scarcity moved from the mine into the human mind, the story became more valuable than the stone. It reinforced something I’ve been thinking about lately: people don’t just build worlds—they build explanations. Thank you for such a thoughtful read.
Thank you, Jeff. Yes, it became belief itself. People build explanations is a good way to put it, and once one takes hold, hardly anyone bothers checking it against the stone in their hand.
I’m glad this resonated with others. One thing I’m discovering is that the conversations after the article are becoming just as valuable as the article itself. They often push the original idea somewhere I hadn’t considered.
Thank you for the restack—I truly appreciate it. The original piece is what made the conversation possible, and I’m grateful my perspective could become a small part of it. One of my favorite things about this community is watching ideas evolve through respectful dialogue. Every thoughtful response adds another lens, and together we often end up seeing more than any one of us could have seen alone.
Eine beeindruckende Story. Sehr lehrreich und spannend. Ein toller Essay!
A huge story: brilliantly told. (I’m now going to read it again). 🐜
Thank you, Ant. A second read is the best thing you can say about a long one. 🐜
Some things never change, do they? Fugger lending diamonds to the royals for the wedding vs. Jewel Ateliers lending diamonds to celebrities for galas. Propaganda to make diamonds seem rare and expensive vs. the modern association of diamonds with 'love' to sell more of them.
Well-researched as always! 🫶
Thank you! History rhymes. Fugger's vault with a red carpet. 🫶
What stayed with me was the idea that a diamond can keep its material form while losing almost everything that made it valuable. The Dresden White may still exist in smaller pieces, but once its history is cut away, it becomes ordinary in a way the original stone never was. That makes the whole essay feel less like a history of diamonds than a history of how stories become value.