If anything, PG&E burning down rural California to drive people into smart >cities where they can be completely controlled by surveillance, made >dependent on food doused with toxic chemicals, and forced to work for wages >to survive strikes me as psychopathic

Purely speculative on your part. Something on that magnitude to be successful would require an oath of silence from everyone involved.....I just don't see it, those people have family, friends and know of others in the effected area's, that's pretty diabolical thinking on quite a few people's part to keep such an endeavor hidden forever.