You could buy second hand clothes and electronics if you care that much, but you don't.
The author is outraged at the hypocrisy, without realising the value of diamonds is that they are scarce.
If you can produce them artificially, they are no longer in the same league with the scarce ones.
Unnecessary ad hominem aside, second hand items are just as likely to have been made by slaves as new ones. The point is that our marketplace is full of the products of slave labour and almost no reliable information about it.
Reminds me when they closed a china assembly factory because of online activism, and the chinese people there started starving, because they had no other income. They would gladly have their factory back.
Also most of the help for african countries does the following:
1) There are 1 Million people starving
2) a lot of food is sent there
3) There are now 2 million people starving
The author is outraged at the hypocrisy, without realising the value of diamonds is that they are scarce. If you can produce them artificially, they are no longer in the same league with the scarce ones.