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Diamond geezers: now you too can have your deceased relatives turned into diamonds

sleazenation

15:23 / 22.08.02

A new service that just been launched in america that allows customers to have their relative's ashes turned into synthetic diamonds.

Not quite sure, what kind of person would want, say, earings made out of their grandparents, but this technique seems to brim with SF-like possibilities. How long before celebrities go in for this? and how long before people start collecting organic diamonds of dead celebrities (would a dead celebrity's genes survive the burning and diamond forming process?)

What do you guys think?

Persephone

15:33 / 22.08.02

*laughing*

And right in my hometown, too! I actually think it's sensible in a way!

8===>Q: alyn

17:22 / 22.08.02

(would a dead celebrity's genes survive the burning and diamond forming process?)

No, they definitely wouldn't.

From what I understand, any organic substance can be made into diamonds -- they probably call for ashes 'cuz ashes are more compact. They put them under tons and tons of pressure and run a steady electrical current through them. You'd need a LOT of weight and a LOT of juice to diamondize a whole body. They don't use them just for industrial purchases, either, there's a decent market for artificial luxury diamonds.

I've always thought keeping the ashes was kinda weird, but this is even weirder. There is nothing left of your loved one at this point. It's just carbon atoms. There's more left of your loved one under the bathmat.

Tryphena Absent

00:40 / 23.08.02

Yes but you could keep your parents on the mantelpiece in a beautiful form.

Persephone

03:17 / 23.08.02

It certainly would give new meaning to the phrase family jewels!

Can you imagine... shiver... you could start something like those add-a-pearl necklaces...

It could be a whole new signifier for class, the size of your family's diamond collection...

Or aliens could visit our planet & there would be nothing left of us but heaps and heaps of diamonds...

But seriously, I don't want to take up space in the ground after I die. But I suppose converting the dead into diamonds requires a huge amount of energy. So I guess it's plain old cremation for me, and sprinkle me somewhere nice.

Bad Horse

07:30 / 23.08.02

What to do with the singed remains of a loved one is a sticky question and this is a reasonable answer. We have some and they are a bit of a liability. It doesn't seem right just to throw them away (scatter them somewhere) and keeping them is a bit odd. He is currently on a book shelf in the british dramatist section, we are going on holiday tonight and will be taking him with us, in case someone breaks in and steals the little bugger. How much more convienient to have him made into jewelry.

sleazenation

08:19 / 23.08.02

yeah you get him turned into jewelry , now, but what about in a generation's time when the family are hard up for money and have to porn granny's diamond remains...

8===>Q: alyn

12:07 / 23.08.02

Porn?

gridley

12:12 / 23.08.02

I would imagine your loved one's eternal soul would become trapped in the diamond for all eternity. Perhaps they would glow with a myterious light or grant wishes. Attached to the end of a wooden staff, they might shoot jets of flame at attackers.

Bad Horse

13:10 / 23.08.02

I think that is a bit of a stretch. My porn Granny's soul is going to shoot fire? Nah, it might improve the texture of my scones though.

I don't see that hauling round a cardboard box full of ashes is any kind of fitting memorial, if my offspring or their offspring are saved from debtors prison by some remains in a jewel, that would be allright.

sleazenation

14:28 / 23.08.02

mea culpa - i typed porn for pawn (ie the practice of taking goods to a pawnbrokers for cash on the understanding that if the cash is not paid back by a certaindate the items will be sold.)

8===>Q: alyn

14:47 / 23.08.02

That may've been a Freudian slit, sleaze, butt let's hot het sidesmacked, the topic is asses and diapers.

gridley

16:09 / 23.08.02

In the case of the example they gave on NPR this morning, the family of the deceased were talking about how "My husband always wanted his remains spread over his favorite patch of woods. But then I would have no way to remember him." So, they spread "some" of his ashes in the woods, and turned the rest of him into a lovely diamond pendant that his wife can were around her neck when she "wants to remember him."

Besides my instant reaction (which was why not just respect his wishes?), I feel like this is an unhealthy reaction to the loss of a lover. If she lost that pendant, would she lose the ability to greive again until she found it? Will his presence around her neck keep her from getting involved with other people? Will it stop you from just plain moving on and getting through the cycle?

Obviously most people have the emotional maturity to handle it, but I could see it messing some people up.

wanderingstar

22:28 / 26.08.02

I'm waiting to see famous dead dj's turned into limited edition scratching needles.

netbanshee

13:58 / 27.08.02

...or Norm from This Old House gracing the edges of special edition saw blades.

The whole:

"My husband always wanted his remains spread over his favorite patch of woods. But then I would have no way to remember him."

...gets me thinking. How won't you remember him? All of those that I've cared about who're gone are well remembered. No need to make them into diamonds. I guess the tagline, "Diamonds are Forever", stuck with some people a bit much.

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