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Tech Replaces Diamonds As Girl's Best Friend
Ant writes to tell us that 'diamonds are no longer a girls best friend', at least according to a recent study commissioned by the Oxygen Network. From the article: "The survey, commissioned by U.S. cable television's Oxygen Network that is owned and operated by women, found the technology gender gap has virtually closed with the majority of women snapping up new technology and using it easily. Women were found on average to own 6.6 technology devices while men own 6.9, and four out of every five women felt comfortable using technology with 46 percent doing their own computer trouble-shooting."
If you had watched that special on The History Channel's Modern Marvels about the history of diamond mining, you'd know that diamonds are valuable because of the De Beers mining company obtaining a monopoly on diamond mining by gradually buying out and merging with all the other diamond companies in South Africa, and gradually the world. They then instituted a propaganda campaign in order to get couples to buy the diamonds, while releasing only a set number of diamonds every year, thus keeping demand artificially high.
Their monopoly was threatened by the Soviet Union finding diamonds in modern Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, De Beers bought out nearly all the diamonds that had fallen into the hands of former Soviet countries. In the 21st century they are threatened by a Canadian diamond company founded by a Canadian geologist once thought to be crazy for suspecting the presence of diamonds in Northwest Canada.
They were finally fined $5 million by the Department of Justice with their monopolistic tactics, but obviously that's like the EU fining Microsoft. I think people are finally waking up and smelling the coffee, realizing that these gems are merely worthless shiny rocks, though the advent of artificial diamonds doesn't hurt.
Here, Wikipedia has an entry.