Diamonds are Forever - Time Preference

I'm posting a 14-part series of mini-essays on diamonds (but really about the economic point of view). Here's part 6.

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Time Preference 

Diamonds are forever. 

(Technically, diamonds aren’t indestructible. Nuclear blasts and hammers alike would render them liquid or dust, respectively—I asked a materials science guy).

But most of the time, diamonds are here to stay, which means their services also stretch into perpetuity. In this regard, diamonds resemble a plot of land—its services aren’t “used up” over time. They’re like the burning bush of biblical fame. 

The fact that both land and diamonds exchange for finite prices is proof that humans place a premium on the present or, to say the same thing, that they discount the future. 

Land yields an infinite stream of services (barring something like nuclear cataclysm); diamonds yield an infinite stream of satisfaction. If they didn’t discount the future, humans would be willing to pay an infinite amount for an infinite stream of something valuable. Yet, we never see exchanges occurring at infinity prices. 

Humans’ discount of the future is why goods with services which aren’t consumed in use still sell for finite prices.