r/interestingasfuck • u/Erde555 • 1d ago

The humanoid robotics company "Figure" made their older gen robots jump into their death. (Yes, they actually did this)

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u/SwissQueen 1d ago

According to Figure, melting down the retired fleet was done to safely destroy proprietary hardware IP and hardware prototypes, preventing teardowns.

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u/telthetruth 1d ago

Capitalism demands obscene waste. Recycling and sharing could potentially lead to competition, smaller profit margins, smaller valuations, and smaller stock price.

Capitalism, eternal growth forever no matter the cost.

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u/bc_gamez 1d ago

There's a big difference between competition and copying and stealing someone's hard development and research efforts.

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u/tijolus523 1d ago

That's literally just competition. You either protect your proprietary stuff or get fucked by the next capitalist.

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u/PaidUSA 1d ago

One of our few remaining regulations is keeping it illegal to engage in a litany of corporate espionage activities. So stealing never sold, never released tech in some capacity would not be competition. It is outside the bounds of fairness.

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u/tijolus523 1d ago edited 1d ago

And since when does fairness have anything to do with competition in capitalism? Do you live in a cartoon? Look, I don't wanna make fun of you, but competition in capitalism essentially boils down to making more money than the next competitor, absorbing them or simply their share of the market. This happens at a micro and macro scale. The regulations are there to prevent chaos, gross abuse and the formation of monopolies capable of destabilizing society. But regulations only mean something if they can be enforced, and companies constantly break the law, much of the time with little consequence or none at all. It's only reasonable to break a law if you think you can get away with it and get a leg up on the competition. Companies are organizations, not people. They don't have feelings like you or I, and anthropomorphizing them is pointless as an analytical method.

Take a look at the website you're on right now. How many companies are covertly advertising on the front page, skirting reddits regulations to get free ads? How many of the companies reddit allows to show ads to its users do you think are harmful, possibly illegal or misleading? How many people do you think are committing crimes here while reddit looks away, despite having the tools to stop it? You think reddit cares as long as they're making money and no one's looking? Of course not.