Breitbart's aptly-named Chriss Street has a rather weird story on Google's automated driving project; the U.S. Department of Transportation's 'Beyond Traffic 2045' transportation policy; and the UN Environmental Program's environmental, social and governance policies (ESG). The story has the ominous title, "Google teaming with UN to dominate transportation future," but it ultimately fails to make the sinister connections implied by the tone and language.
Street introduces the story as though Google is working on behalf of UNEP "to create a world in the next 30 years where all decision making will be controlled by environmental, social and governance policies." Apparently Google is offering data to the UN for use in setting standards, which Street implies is a ploy by Google for "dramatic growth and sustainable dominance of the industry."
After this, Street gets to the actual news event: Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx's visit to the Googleplex to announce the U.S. Department of Transportation's 'Beyond Traffic 2045' project. In describing the project's relatively innocuous, open-ended, and non-prescriptive framework, Street inserts parenthetical references to "undocumented workers" and also implies that Google has some hand in shaping the UNEP's ESG policies. Ultimately, this is a thinly veiled attack on potential transportation policies intended to reduce carbon emissions that just throws in some vague UN references for good measure.
It's a rather bizarre piece that almost enters "Black Helicopter" territory, but doesn't quite. Rather, it sends those signals to its readers while maintaining a veneer of sanity. That veneer is quickly discarded in the comment section, though, with one particularly bizarre comment saying, "Google and the UN want to knock God off of his throne. Lucifer tried it as well. Look what happened to him."
What? Since when is God in the business of self-driving cars?
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