Ah diamonds, crystallized carbon. Everyday people come home with sacks full of carbon, in the the form of charcoal briquettes, and throw it on the fire. But just because you’ve got some carbon with the atoms stacked neatly you expect me to plunk down millions of dollars

@shyflutter  
Intrinsic value is the value that something holds just for existing. Like gold is a great rust-proof conductor for use in all kinds of electronics and is so is bought for that use.  
By contrast, EXTRINSIC value is the value something has that is ascribed to it by someone selling it. There is a demand for jewellery made of gold, and so people making gold jewellery raise their price. The gold’s intrinsic value hasn’t changed, but if people are willing to buy it at the higher price, then it has a greater extrinsic value.
 
Does that make sense? :) (I’m not an Economics expert, this is just based on my own limited understanding of the terms…)

What is intrinsically valuable?

@mathprofbrony  
Well, advertising and price fixing.

@The Smiling Pony
 
Their demand in industrial settings would not anywhere near justify the price spent for them as jewelry, though.
 
A measure of the artificiality of the diamond price can easily be taken by just looking at the price difference between natural and lab-grown diamond, which is already most of the industrial market and is chemically indistinguishable. Why is “natural” worth a multi-hundred-dollar premium over artificial for the same size and flawlessness?
 
If you don’t like the word “intrinsic,” then let us say that the price of diamonds includes significant oligopoly rents to the small group of producers and distributors.
 
De Beers didn’t make its money being bizarrely good at mining. De Beers made its money being good at advertising.

@Whatevs  
Except they’re actually extremely useful for cutting, drilling and lasers.
 
Just like gold is extremely useful for loads of things and not just “pretty”.

@Ebalosus  
The point is that they are pretty much useless outside of a fabricated idea of ornamentation.  
Which I don’t think is bad, mind you.

@The Smiling Pony  
It’s more an abuse of language than anything else. Technically the value isn’t intrinsic to the commodity, but if everyone throughout history has considered it valuable, that value may as well be intrinsic.

@Ebalosus  
So the entire term is pointless.

@The Smiling Pony
 
Intrinsically, yes. Remember, it requires humans (as far as we know) to ascribe value to things. Put this way:
 
If there was no humanity, does the universe still have worth?
 
What does this computer I’m typing on mean, if there was no one around to acknowledge its existence? I’m not subscribing to a nihilistic viewpoint of reality, but am saying that value only exists because there are people whom find thing valuable.
 
Diamonds have worth, make no doubt about it. It’s just that their worth comes from people whom find diamonds valuable, not because diamonds have a value ascribed to them by their very existence.

@Ebalosus  
By that logic everything in the universe is worthless…

@Background Human
 
My point still stands: value doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and diamonds/gold/silver/property are only valuable because we ascribe value to them.
 
So yes, diamonds are intrinsically worthless.

These people are as bad as creationists when it comes to quote mining. Let’s look at Nicky “Minaj” Oppenheimer’s full statement, shall we?
 
Diamonds are intrinsically worthless, except for the deep psychological need they fill.
 
Likewise, Rarara’s work with fashion fills a deep psychological need among the ponies of Equestria, and DT… eh, she’ll do something useful one of these days, I’m sure. Maybe.

“Intrinsic value”
 
The idea that something has value ascribed to it by its mere existence.  

Yea. Pretty much.  
It’s all marketing

“Rare and hard to get” doesn’t mean anything about intrinsic worth, though.
 
A bit of helium from the Sun would be incredibly hard to get, but would be thoroughly useless except as a curiosity.
 
The amount of diamond needed for cutting tools is quite small, and can be satisfied by artificial diamond these days.
 
Diamonds as valuable stones are actually a fairly recent invention of jewelry companies, partially because the cutting technology is fairly new.

@P3FOYFN  
Anything that’s useful is worth something. Gravel is worth something. The bytes of data this text occupies is worth something.
 
And diamonds, diamonds are both rare, hard to produce/procure and extremely useful.

He’s saying worthless, not useless.

My guess is that the guy means “in value as a jewelry”. Not worth the price for something you put on, but it is valuable for practical use as a tool or part of a machinery.

@Background Pony #2A08  
They’re useful, but in the sense that gravel is useful. It is, but that doesn’t make it difficult to obtain all the gravel, or diamonds, that you could ever use. And in any case, synthetic diamonds are far more useful for anything except ornamentation. (And even there, synthetic ones would be more useful, except for the arbitrary decision that a natural one with small flaws is “better” than a synthetic one with no flaws whatsoever.)

No, diamonds totally have technological applications useful in everything from computers to scientific equipment. It’s just that De Beers keeps the price artificially inflated. I could go into more detail, but this may be too much for the comment section of a pony art website.

@Yet_One_More_Idiot  
Be interesting to see a pony with a diamond tool cutie mark.

Not really, at least not now a days.  
They are used in many cutting tools and are beginning to work their way into electronics. (though largely the man made variety for sake of uniformity and specified composition)

Yeah, even if people stopped wanting diamonds in jewellery, they’d still be excellent as extremely hard cutting tools. So that douche is wrong, you ponies, diamonds DO have intrinsic value for cutting tools (as well as extrinsic value as jewellery).