Day: February 11, 2007

Conflict diamonds on the big screen

It is not often that an international non-profit organization sends letters to contributors urging them to watch the latest Hollywood block-buster. That’s exactly what Amnesty International has done with Blood Diamond.

It’s not the first time the subject of conflict diamonds has featured in a  major production. That honor goes to a James Bond movie of all things. As played by Pierce Brosnan, 007, not exactly known for insisting on fair-trade coffee and dolphin-safe tuna, makes a passing reference to  the problem of conflict diamonds in Die Another Day, where the villain is guilty of “laundering” gems from war zones through a bogus mine in New Zealand. But any deeper political and economic examination of the problem is cast aside as 007 gets busy shooting up things.

So it falls to Leonardo Di Capprio to make the point four years later, playing the mercenary Danny Archer smuggling diamonds out of Sierra Leone in order to help a  major diamond producer (based in Belgium, just enough seperation from reality that De Beers will not take offense) work around the official embargo against trading with the war-stricken country. The movie attempts to make the case on two levels. First there is the ultra-realistic violence reminiscent of Blackhawk Down, showing the effects civil war, fueled by diamond profits, on the lives of ordinary citizens. In case the audience misses that, there is a very blunt monologue by Archer, filmed in sepia tones and delivered in practiced South-African accent. It purports to explain how demand for diamonds is created as a cultural myth on the one hand, while scarcity is created on the supply side by withholding production from the market. Given the flow of cash involved, Archer says, raising questions about the source is  not wise: the last thing buyers need before forking over three months salary is even the hint of third-world destruction in the making of their shiny bling-blings.

And for that reason, the sanctimonious  suggestion at the end that buyers question the source of diamonds before purchasing, rings hollow. Given the incentives at stake, is it in the interest of the sellers to know– let alone disclose– the true origins of their wares?   (The three-letter acronym often repeated in the movie, “TIA” or this-is-Africa might as well be read as this-is-America.)

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When the US Postal Service makes a mistake

An envelop arrived in the mail recently– containing another envelope inside visible through a transparent window, obviously damaged. Front of the package bears the red stamp “Received in damaged condition at Seattle, WA.” The back reads:

“Dear Valued Postal Customer:
I want to extend my sincere apology as your Postmaster for the enclosed document that was inadvertently damaged in handling by your Postal Service.”

What makes this unique is the infrequency of mail mishandling by the USPS. Quaint and old-school as this apology may be, it shows how seriously the postal service takes its duty of delivering mail reliably. (In this case it did not even matter: it was a newsletter from a theatre company in Seattle that continued to keep this blogger on their mailing list even after he had moved to the East Coast.) As the message points out, USPS handles over 200 billion pieces each year and most of them arrive at their intended destination without a hitch.

The reliability of physical mail stands in sharp contrast to what happens with its high-tech cousin. From the early days of the Internet, the basic infrastructure of email was predicated on “best-effort delivery.” There are no guarantees, no one to apologize if the message disappears into the ether and not even a reliable return receipt feature when crossing organizational boundaries. While network and software reliability has improved, widespread deployment of anti-spam measures erased any gains. Ironically messages can now survive unscathed through multiple hops in cyberspace, only to be filed away as “junk” at the destination by an over-zealous spam filter.

One could argue that state of affairs makes sense economically, given that it costs money to send letters when email is free. (It is not, but the perception remains because of ubiquitous free email providers. “Free email” is subsidized by advertising, often based on extensive data-mining. As Heinlein would say, TANSTAFL.) But the problem with email is that there is exactly one quality-of-service, independent of how motivated the sender is. A good friend does not always have better odds than the spammer outfit based in China for getting email into your inbox. There is no equivalent to registered or certified mail even if the sender cared to pay for it, either in real currency or virtual one such as HashCash.

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