(Article changed on September 2, 2013 at 19:25)
Google is building a zombie!
You already suspected as much, didn't you?
It's true, and it's been right there all along, right under our noses. They haven't been trying to hide it; it's not a secret project. What not everyone has grasped -- even some of the engineers involved in the project -- is that it is, in fact, a zombie that Google is building.
They call it the "self-driving car." It's really a zombie.
by | El Caganer
Why?: It's simple. The car is dying. It should soon be dead. Not only because of the threat of peak oil and the desperate hunt for alternative fuel sources that will follow. Not only because all the alternative fuel sources we have come up with -- electricity, biodiesel, nuclear, etc. -- each have their own problems, and contribute in their own way to the destruction of the planet.
And it's not only because of that looming threat of ecological disaster that the car is dying. Well, actually that's a big one, let's dwell on that for a moment or two. The car is amazingly wasteful. It sucks down fossil fuel and belches out smog. It demands that we smear concrete -- itself a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention the heat island effect which raises temperatures -- all throughout our cities, and in broad ribbons across our landscape. Cars are a major source of debt, and a leading cause of death in the United States. There are a gazillion reasons why we, as rational creatures, should abandon the car right away and turn to alternative modes of travel.
But we aren't rational creatures, so that isn't why the car is dying.
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