A diamond mining session as long as you forfeit any diamond you find

Posted by rmrdrn@reddit | CrazyIdeas | View on Reddit | 46 comments

Some people like learning about United States history. Things like the early days of settlement, building cabins, riding horses, civil wars, farming, cooking, living. They like participating in civil war reenactments, gold prospecting classes by rivers, starting a fire with sticks, and so forth. Well now there’s a company willing to give you a free diamond mining session like they did in the past. You go inside a cave and search for diamonds. A pickaxe and a shovel. You have a good time and earn a good experience. The only catch is you have to forfeit any diamonds you find. There are workers and cameras watching you at all times and the diamonds found is how they continue this free of charge historic program.

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46 Comments

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OrangeOwlbear@reddit

🤣🤣🤣🤣

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Secret-Ad-7909@reddit

There’s already a diamond mine open to the public. https://www.arkansasstateparks.com/parks/crater-diamonds-state-park $15 entry fee and you get to keep any diamonds you find.

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OGEl_Pombero89@reddit

My wife and I went there on our honeymoon earlier this month. We learned some of the locals call it the "Crater of Disappointment". We had much better luck and fun hitting up some of the crystal mines.

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Starklystark@reddit

>My wife and I went there on our honeymoon earlier this month. We learned some of the locals call it the "Crater of Disappointment". The mine not the honeymoon I trust?

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ImShaniaTwain@reddit

I worked with a guy in Illinois who was from Arkansas. Every year he would go there with his family. Did it for years and years and he never found shit, his brother did though, it wasn't worth much I don't think but atleast he found something! They will even check it for you to make sure it's a real diamond! Some big ones have been found there. So many people have been going for so long with hopes of hitting it big it has been dug out all over. People still find stuff though! Pretty sure you have to bring your own equipment, you may be able to rent pans idk, but they have little pavilions set up where you can run water and soft through your buckets. I would love to go. Probably wouldn't find anything but there is always a chance! I think it would be nifty too.

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Smithium@reddit

The top ten feet of soil has been dug and re-dug, screened and re-screened for diamonds. There isn't much left. If they'd let someone dig deeper, they could find a fortune. It's a kimberlite pipe from a long extinct volcano. The diamonds go all the way down.

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ImShaniaTwain@reddit

Ive never been there, I imagine they aren't going to allow a civilian to come in with an excavator and start digging down deep. Even without an excavator, they probably would have an issue with a person simply using a shovel and digging deep down in hopes of getting to a spot others haven't been.

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Solrex@reddit

Digging for diamonds meme relevant here?

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Secret-Ad-7909@reddit

They do have rental equipment

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Whack-a-Moole@reddit

Why free? Why not charge them for the privledge of the experience?

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rmrdrn@reddit (OP)

they make money from the diamonds found

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GeeTheMongoose@reddit

Diamonds are actually pretty worthless- their value is artificially inflated by the people running blood mines.

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pterofactyl@reddit

“Diamonds are worthless, they just sell them for a lot”

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GeeTheMongoose@reddit

Tell me what intrinsic value diamonds hold. They have a limited practical use but that's entirely fulfilled using the many, many, rejects. What makes a diamond worth $10k? $20k? $100k+? It's like the art industry. A banana duct taped to a wall is only worth $6 million dollars because someone was willing to pay it. It has no actual value.

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pterofactyl@reddit

Never said it had intrinsic value, but they do have *worth*, since people will buy it, dumbass.

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shadow6654@reddit

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/12/diamonds-de-beers-corporation-rare-marketing/676270/

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thatthatguy@reddit

You have to mine a LOT of diamonds in order to find the few that are gem quality, and then a lot more to get ones that are of a pleasant color and clarity. Any random diamond you pull out of the rock is unlikely to be terribly valuable, especially in an uncut state. That said, I still think diamonds are overpriced, and the idea of everyone needing a diamond wedding band is ridiculous. I am a fan of sapphires.

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Hziak@reddit

Probably not much. Besides the relatively low value of diamonds outside of commercial jewelry, an untrained public workforce performing novel labor probably won’t find much. It’d be like letting kids run a lemonade stand on a large plot of commercial property. You could use the land much better if your goal was to make money.

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Upper_Restaurant_503@reddit

Real life isn't minecraft....

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kroniknastrb8r@reddit

But they could make more if they charged you.

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BeerAndTools@reddit

Now that's the America I know!

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Hoppie1064@reddit

No. That's Africa.

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shasaferaska@reddit

That is a crazy idea. Mining (before modern machinery) was increbily arduous and dangerous, which is why people often often used slave labour. Why would anyone risk their health for free?

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Gecko23@reddit

People pay for absurdly unsafe 'experiences' all the time. A bunch of them infamously paid a fortune to get crushed to death in a low budget sub just a while back didn't they? Every summer there are a handful of burning hot air balloons falling out of the sky killing everyone who paid to be aboard. And on and on.

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Manhunting_Boomrat@reddit

They didn't pay because they wanted to die in a can at the bottom of the ocean, they paid because they wanted to look around at all the weird shit at the bottom of the ocean. Nobody wants to see the inside of a mine, and if they did they'd boot up World of Warcraft and go the the Undermines and save a lot of effort

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Gecko23@reddit

Bullshit. People go in abandoned mines all the time. It's the whole reason that local govt's end up bricking them up or putting gates on them. \*You\* don't want to see the inside of an old mine, and \*you\* don't think the risk is worth it. The first person to start offering this for sale will have them lined up a hundred deep waiting for the chance.

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finiterabbit@reddit

But all those examples are promising something for the suffering

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lordskulldragon@reddit

This is on par with picking cotton on a plantation.

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lokicramer@reddit

Diamonds are extraordinarily common. 99% of them are just essentially almost worthless and used to create cutting wheels and crap. Now a gold mine doing this might be cooler.

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Own-Rip-5066@reddit

So you get to do backbreaking labor for "experience" and let them get rich? Great...

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Accomplished_Ant5895@reddit

So free labor

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HellFireCannon66@reddit

Seeing “a diamond mining session” and the post not being about minecraft made me very sad

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Manhunting_Boomrat@reddit

How is that different from a slave mining operation? Aside from that the slaves don't pay you to come mine your diamonds? Who the fuck wants to do that?

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ImShaniaTwain@reddit

So kind of like the fake gold rush tours they do out west, you know the ones where the occasionally throw in a hunk of food worth s couple bucks then want to charge you for pictures and crap. Pretty sure some of the places won't let you keep the good even if you find it. Side note it has been said already but there is a diamond mine in Arkansas and you can keep what you find. Good luck though it has been mined to all hell lol

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J-Dabbleyou@reddit

“Let’s bring back free child labor but call it education!” This is genuinely a brilliant idea

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GoatsWithWigs@reddit

In a dark and poorly-lit cave, with dirt and rocks everywhere to conceal me? I bet I could pocket a few with some low-effort sleight of hand

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Hoppie1064@reddit

Or strip searches and anal probes.

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BeerAndTools@reddit

I don't think these diamonds are worth as much as you might think they are

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GoatsWithWigs@reddit

They are when De Beers keeps em overpriced as hell

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BeerAndTools@reddit

For sure, it's all about that artificial scarcity. But with lab diamonds now? Cheaper, better, less murdery.

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idontwanttothink174@reddit

Ok but a few people pocketing the diamonds really wouldn’t affect much with how little they truly are worth.

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space-ferret@reddit

My pockets gone be clackin as I say I ain’t found shit

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lilsasuke4@reddit

Why not go a step further and force people to mine the diamonds?

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The1TrueRedditor@reddit

So basically Blood Diamond

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rsteele1981@reddit

There were tourist type gold camps in Alaska in the early 2000s. My grandpa and uncles went. There's a gem stone mine in Arkansas and several other places. More touristy than educational but they exist.

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Sensitive-Respect-25@reddit

Diamonds wouldnt be the way to go. An 1800s mining town recreation with fuctional sluice mine? An "educational and internet free place to explore your past"? This would be something I could get behind. Bobus if its an old gold player mine, keep whatever gold flake you manage to find. Enjoy panning, hiking and renahcihg during the day. A chuck wagon on site for lunch. Bar and firecooked fare for dinner. Some modern utilities like power, medical and indoor plumbing.