Cultural Course Correcting: Black Rock City 2019 | Hacker News Reader

Cultural Course Correcting: Black Rock City 2019

journal.burningman.org

78 pointseplanit40 comments

A phenomenon like Burning Man needs to be somewhat inaccessible to actually work. If it's too easy, it fills up with people who aren't committed enough. In the beginning, that inaccessibility was provided by the sheer obscurity and a somewhat remote and hostile location. But now Burning Man is famous and some tourists are willing to make the effort. But tourists just aren't committed.

That means it's time to raise the stakes. Start holding the event in some even more remote and inaccessible place, like the top of Denali. Those who are willing to go that far will be a smaller but more committed group.

"That's the door. The only way in. Small and extremely uncomfortable. And anyone who wants to know us has to find out how to get through that door. Brother cardinals, we need to go back to being prohibited. Inaccessible and mysterious. That's the only way we can once again become desirable." -- The Young Pope

> A phenomenon like Burning Man needs to be somewhat inaccessible to actually work. If it's too easy, it fills up with people who aren't committed enough. In the beginning, that inaccessibility was provided by the sheer obscurity and a somewhat remote and hostile location.

I suspect that the greater general acceptance of drug use is probably the real gating factor that dropped.

However, the primary issue has been that the Burning Man leadership drove it to this spot.

Are you leading a small gathering of burned out hippies from San Francisco or are you leading a cultural force in the broader society?

The leadership chose "we want to be a big cultural force", and you don't get there without broad appeal to the plebes. And the plebes nowadays include a boatload of wannabe social influencers on Instagram, Snapchat, etc. And that brings with it all the toxic "hot chicks" marketing garbage.

Furthermore, given many of the actions that the Burning Man leadership have taken in the past years, this smells like more than a little bit of hypocrisy of "Other people are getting paid and we're not getting our cut."

The organizers have been doubling down on the radical inclusion principle in recent years. Burning Man is just not the place for (probably) most people. Even the low-end turn-key camps and Burner Busses (well-meaning to reduce road congestion travelling to and from BM) can weaken the radical self-reliance principle.

Yeah the tricky part is figuring out a form of inaccessibility that isn't nullified by wealth

Mandatory nudity from ankles to eyebrows, sunrise to sunset.

This cripples the transportation of the art and constructed vehicles in the spirit of the festival. I still think the conceptual 'raising the stakes' holds merit but perhaps not making it entirely physically restrictive.

Bulleted changes from the article:

- The pre-sale, which is like the early-bird sale for tickets, will be moved until after the directed group sale, which is for burners who are "key contributors to Black Rock City (theme and mutant vehicle camps, art collectives, and core teams)."

- That directed group sale is also growing by 10 percent more tickets in an attempt to boost "meaningful participation."

- The application-based Low Income Ticket Program will grow by 18 percent.

- The organization is also reducing the number of high-priced tickets available by 30 percent: "Higher-priced tickets will now be limited to 2 per person instead of 4 per high-priced tier, and buyers in what was formerly the “Pre-Sale” will no longer be able to participate in subsequent public sales," Goodell wrote.

- The limited sale will also be eliminated this year, which for the past two years allowed burners to purchase $1,200 tickets into July, according to the post.

It's interesting to me because most people who get tickets via the directed group sale contribute very little to the event beyond the camp dues they pay. Most full theme camps are planned and run by just a few people. I really think they should increase main sale tickets rather than directed group sale. Prioritize people who really are radically self-reliant and still want to contribute and aren't just paying dues to a camp and using their infrastructure.

Of course everyone will complain about the tickets no matter what they do though. Cool they are trying to improve.

Yes most full theme camps are planned and run by a few people, but they're generally inclined to only give tickets to those who are actively helping with the camp (and its the public sale people who tend to come in and contribute less). Having camp dues alone is a pretty solid indication that its enabling commoditization.

I think the split between "contributing" and "not contributing" is veiling a less glamorous, but possibly more pragmatic battle: new vs. old.

If they can ensure that more tickets are going to well-established camps that have been around for a long time, you'll be more likely to give tickets to people in the "right" social circles.

And that's probably an effective thing to do to maintain the social fabric. I don't think the community is getting angry about a camp's tent getting setup by 5 out of its 40 members; that's always been the norm.

I think that's a bit cynical, and the fact that certain established camps are getting kicked out for misbehaviour (as per the article), and some of the bigger MV camps are getting reduced in size seems to indicate that just being "grandfathered in" is not enough. Overall this is a very hard problem with no easy solutions. I personally think the changes described in the article are likely to help with some of the issues the community has been growing concerned with.

(and, as you say, if one of the side effects is that the camps that have have been part of the culture for a long time remain able to exist and contribute, that is a good thing for the social fabric).

Camp dues cover the costs of the camp. Such as water and food, transporting said water and food, shelter, etc... You share those costs because you share the resources and also there is the benefit of economy of scale and less redundant effort per person. Honestly not sure how that demonstrates commoditization.

It's because the principles of Burning Man are inherently in contention with each other and equally unachievable. People who harp on the principles generally grossly violate them to some degree. It's a big party in the desert alongside the largest installation art festival in the world. If you think it's more than that, lay off the acid.

Thats an incredibly reductive way to think about it that comes from a really cynical position - I feel bad for you that thats how you think about it. Its opened a lot of different worlds of thought to me.

I'm really glad you enjoy acid and other psychedelics. I'm glad that you have the privilege to do that at Burning Man. I also enjoy both of those things.

If you've done any real volunteering with the org, you'd understand that it is a purely capitalistic endeavor that preys on people who think it's more than what it is. Realizing this has given me lots of opportunity to do great things with great people.

All ideals are contradictory and unachievable, but the tension they create motivates action, which can lead to interesting forms of change.

There are as many stories as there are participants. Yours is one kind of story that some people have. There are other people, who have been participating in Burning Man for years, for whom the party and the art are nothing more than useful motivating excuses for going to Black Rock City. Some of them might say that the event is a laboratory for experiments in forms of social organization and activity which contrast with those most commonly seen in the "default world". All of these stories are true at once.

If there was no party and no art, there would be no Black Rock City. If there wasn't a faceless capitalist organization running the party, there would be no Black Rock City. I don't disagree that your story happens, it happens to me, but let's get real: It's for rich white people, just like all psychedelic movements of modern civilization. Acceptance of my privilege has enabled me to grow in ways that you couldn't imagine, although I do feel complex emotions for people who think it's more than what it is, but at the end of the day I don't think they have much to offer to the world or the burning man experience, and their zealous attitude that they are [insert your greater power]'s gift to earth is juvenile.

Agreed. Shared Resources covered by the cost of dues are directly related to the principles of Communal Effort (cooperation and collaboration on efficiently allocating and deploying resources as a collective effort) and Civic Responsibility through more environmental and public friendly use of resources.

The point is definitely to share costs and resources, but my thinking is converging your camp experience behind a paywall is a bit of a commoditization thing. Its one way to ensure equal financing of the costs, but in the places I've camped its been a lot more "we want you here, please provide what you can". Unless of course, everyone is on equal economic footing in which case... mayybe a less homogenous group would be of a benefit?

They could fix the problem immediately by just banning RVs, private portas, and dismantling burner air (allowing special exceptions that must be approved by borg). This would keep many of the Instagram tourists out. If they were for real they would just do that. Also if they introduced snakes to deep playa.

Some side-effects I predict these changes will have:

- With reduced pre-sale tickets available, there will be increased pressure on main-sale tickets.

- With increased pressure on main-sale tickets, the percentage on first time attendees will skew downward even more, I believe around 30-30% of attendees on avg within the last couple years are first timers.

- There will be more pressure to form or join a theme camp, with more focus on DGS ticket sales, which are issues to theme camps in good standing, for the following year they attend.

- With increased demand for theme camps, the average size of theme camps will probably increase as they compete against each other for more interactivity in order to get placement, and have more revenue to out produce other camps.

- Open Camping(non-theme) will probably decrease in the amount of land available, as the Burning Man org tries to off set the demand.

- Open Camping is still very important to the core culture and principle of radical expression and radical self-reliance.

I predict that BM org will lobby the Nevada government for more population count past the 70,000, AND change the layout to enable a larger density of theme camps.

> - With reduced pre-sale tickets available, there will be increased pressure on main-sale tickets.

pre-sale tickets were always a much smaller percentage than main sale though, and were always priced significantly higher. So, they were bringing in a more affluent populace than the average burner.

> - With increased pressure on main-sale tickets, the percentage on first time attendees will skew downward even more, I believe around 30-30% of attendees on avg within the last couple years are first timers.

The pressure has been sky-high for years now. That's why main sale always sells out within an hour or less. That's also why so many theme camps had real issues in the last few years actually being able to get their core members in to make the camps even possible to run (and, I assume, that is the issue that DGS is meant to alleviate).

I honestly doubt that the theme camp participation is going to significantly change due to this. Open camping is still the vast, vast majority of the attendees. Running or participating in a theme camp is a ton of work that most people are not able or willing to do, and I'd be very surprised if that changed in any statistically significant way. But I guess we'll see!

The big thing that makes Burning Man what it is, is the attendees.

The work involved in preparing, travelling, and surviving on the Playa is a big part of attendee self-selection.

There is a tension between radical inclusion and radical self-reliance. If you make BM too easy for people you end up with more tourists. Tourists and social media influencers do not positively contribute, IMO.

another problem is: if money is what enables attendance you’ll end up with a bunch of jack dorseys running around.

Whatever issues I might have with some of Dorsey's policies, I expect he'd be a fine burner (if he did, or already has, attended).

I think the spectator is a valid part of any event like this - but the spectator should perhaps be a small percentage of attendees - participants being more important.

I'd love to attend Burning Man, but short of buying an RV, and driving down there, the time involved to do so exceeds my budget - even though there is a good chance I'd show up and end up volunteering my time in some way to help the collective whole. I like the participatory ethos, and it shouldn't be crowded out by the tourists, but the tourists are somewhat important too.

| Tourists and social media influencers do not positively contribute, IMO.

Also see: Fyre

If re-establishing the principle of decommoditization is the goal, then I think the solution is simply to ban phones and cameras. This is difficult to enforce, however. Ultimately the problem is similar to that of what happened to hippy counter culture. It becomes cool and those that seek to exploit it will do so. The tie-dye shirt had its day and the culture was offensively exploited by all kinds of entities that had no understanding of the culture nor interest in taking upon the values. Burning man has an advantage here because it is centered around a location, and a difficult one at that. I disagree with the notion of exclusion. Inclusion is a priority to spread the principles and values to those that would benefit, while making the exploitation by corporations and apathetic individuals very very difficult (or just not worth it).

> ban phones and cameras

Maybe this is just me being an "old timer", but one of my favorite aspects of burning man was getting away from connectivity and technology. There was no cell signal on the playa (or anywhere after Gerlach) and I could only send a text back from Center camp mid-week to let my SO know i made it. The harsh environs also made it so that I didn't want to take a smartphone out on the playa.

The last couple of times I went (and I haven't been in 2 years), I was shocked to see that there was full 4G/LTE connectivity on the playa and that hanging out at a camp bar or mutant vehicle, you're likely to see the same face buried in their phones experience that you'd see in the default world.

Same. My first year I brought my Rebel T2i to photo-document the trip, but the trying to "capture the moment" continually ruined "the moment" itself.

I decided living the experience was more important than documenting it and put the camera away on the first day.

I can get behind this. I've been to Black Rock twice for BALLS, the premiere high altitude launch event for hobby rocketry in the states (in 2012 and 2013 respectively). It always takes place a few weeks after BM. I've had many a chat with the hard core organisers/workers behind BM as we all drink at the bar at Bruno's at the end of the day. They have to stay behind for weeks after the event cleaning up the playa from trash left behind. The two things they pick up more than anything else? Batteries and chapstick. Your recommendation would possibly mitigate some of the batteries from the equation.

If you want the Burning Man experience of the early years, there's Wasteland Weekend.

Camp Humano will probably end up running their own festival on a private island or something.

It takes effort to have values and stick to them.

This is a decent source but the original blog post would probably be better

https://journal.burningman.org/2019/02/philosophical-center/...

The design of this paper (rgj.com) is filled with many either unintended bugs or serious anti-patterns. It's almost impossible to read.

There are many local (and at least one national) papers using this exact same site. Both the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press (my local papers) use it, along with USA Today. It's maddening.

I think its a gannet standard template

yep, there is a Phoenix newspaper like that too.

Maybe it's one of those design by committee monstrosities that has been 'enhanced' several times.

OK, we've updated the link from https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2019/02/11/burning-man-ceo-an.... Thanks!

Pages like this one are why you should only load comments on request, not by default.

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