[ExI] Carbides (Was: hacked email)

[Anders Sandberg]

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> , 1/12/2014 8:43 AM:
### Scratching steel should be easy :)
"TC is forever and 1/1000th the price" - that should be the motto of people who know better than to believe what the jewelry peddlers are telling us.
Well, it cannot survive the solar photosphere. But for most normal activities outside nuclear fireballs it is forever. I was a bit worried that it was vulnerable to acetone given some text on Wikipedia, but Eric Drexler looked into it and found that the mention was due to a misreading of the original paper; it has been corrected.
I briefly looked at jewels, and found silicon carbide (moissanite) to be intriguing. Again, way cheaper than diamond, almost as hard, and with great optical properties. 
Carbides are generally quite awesome. 

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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