Not things like this, this exactly. He's the trust fund baby of an apartheid era emerald mine baron.

Both people in this picture are being abused by the company. The difference is that the company also lets the white guy abuse the black guy, and for that reason, the white guy feels superior.

This is one of those things you see in fascist governments. As long as people are able to abuse someone, they'll accept a much worse station as well as a lot of abuse themselves.

Nah, the real contest is who gets the most cancer. Gotta catch 'em all!

@Tar_alcaran ... if the miners even lived long enough to get cancer.

Diamond miners during Apartheid were working in unsafe conditions for ridiculously low wages, often coerced into being there, and at relatively high risk of tuberculosis.

but the guy looking at it is putting his face and uppee body right in the beam here

Ah, but he's wearing gloves, so he'll be fine.

X-ray tubes, old and new, use high energy electrons that impact a metal to create the beam. Alpha and beta emission is from radioactive decay which is an entirely different phenomenon. But yes bathing your body in X-rays is bad for you

Cancer speedrun any%

Plus he had to do this every day at the end of his shift. Between that and the rock dust exposure I'd hate to see the cancer rates for those guys

So you are saying he obtained multiple Superpowers from the ungodly amount of radiation?

Tbf. back then it was not uncommon to xray ones feet in a shoe store to see if the new shoes fit.

100% accuracy with enough attempts!

Try visiting a De Beers mine and see for yourself.

I'm depressed enough as it is thank you.

Daily x-rays.... Seems like that won't have any impact to long term survival.

What a humane way to prevent theft.

Really? Jesus. I would have expected such a thing to have long died out.

This is pretty far down the list as far as reasons to not buy diamonds. They're not rare. They're not special. It's a rock with limited industrial use.

For added context, they're still cutting the hands and feet off of dependents (including children) of miners to ensure they work hard.

I mean if everyone tells you "we have a machine that can see through skin and can check if you have hidden diamonds" that would probably stop any attempts at theft that way. Even if it doesn't actually see them. Also, diamonds out of the mine would be uncut, and probably easier to see.

That's after the diamond has been cut. Raw diamond would be mostly encased in rock which would display differently