The Billionaires at Burning Man | Hacker News Reader

The Billionaires at Burning Man

bloomberg.com

The whole situation is a mess, and it's made less clear by other camps. While some of the RV fortresses are exclusive houses to the well off, some of them pool the dues in order to pay for public arts and music infrastructure. Patrons are needed at a point to be able to support some of these art camps.

But even these art camps have a flip side. Last year I spent a lot of time helping out and hanging around one of these music camps. I even provided a multimeter which was needed to repair some of the lights. But at the end of the day, after making friends and lending my labor, there was certain internal events and things that were simply off limits to me.

It's true that some of these camps don't actively give or interact with the community, but the when they leave the camp and mingle with the masses they are effectively taking. Burning man is one of the few places in the world that you aren't rejected for who you are, no matter what. So by closing off your camp to others, you are effectively making people feel rejected. Which is much louder out in the dust.

What a tricky situation. I personally like the idea of 1 Percent'ers mingling with the other 99% of the population more, but they need to do it in a hyper-aware, super self-critical approach or backlash (as mentioned in the article) will occur and tensions will arise. The privileged need to be aware of their privileges, especially when those privileges can be so apparent to others. High walls, exclusive bars and paid workers doesn't seem to mesh with some of the tenants of burning man.

But I really like the idea of the wealthy spending money to make a community of disparate peoples more enjoyable if it's for the entire community. That idea seems to fall in line with many of the burning man principles.

I think most Burning Man attendees are in the top 2-5% and are already in quite a privileged position

Yes. Anecdotally, the people I know of who do go to Burning Man are either techies or lawyers with upper-middle class income with liberal/progressive ideas or grad students whose socio-economic circumstances are well off enough to allow them to pursue graduate education in the first place.

Purely anecdotally, but I can think of many friends and relatives who have gone to burning man in the past and are nowhere near the top 2-5%. Last I checked, my dear sister (a self described burner) is living out of a van and selling jewelry at concerts/shows to make a small income.

Also anecdotally, those same burners have mentioned that they are less and less interested in going to burning man based on their recent (negative) experiences in the last 1-2 years and are doing more burner-like things locally.

Your perception is wrong. Every year they do a census. Of the people who filled out the survey most earn under 100k a year, with the average being around $40k. To be 5% of the US you need to be earning 188k a year.

http://feralgraphing.blogspot.com/2011/08/income-distributio... http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-p...

Bleh, I am getting really tired of all this billionaire worship. It seems like every day I can't escape people's endless simpering about how the rich this, or how the rich don't need to that, or whatever. The rich don't need to be focused on so much.

They don't automatically dominate any culture they set their eyes on, and some minor squabbling over how comfortable it's acceptable for them to be at an anything-goes event like Burning Man is pretty stupid.

The thing is, power scales almost linearly with money. And $1 billion is a lot of money. I believe they could buy that whole patch of desert for that matter.

I've never been to Burning Man, but I've always admired what it stood for, and I'm saddened by the high-placed ignorance that threatens to destroy it.

No one begrudges billionaires for attending. They can go, as long as they leave the snooty class politics (for which that set of people, even if not all are guilty individually, is known) and exclusion at home. Being rich never made one PNG, because it went against the ethos to exclude a person because of the behavior of that person's social class in "the rest of the world".

The problem is that these assholes are bringing their rest-of-the-world exclusionary behavior into it. The same horrible thing they did to California, they're now doing to the Burning Man.

They don't automatically dominate any culture they set their eyes on

When someone blends in socially they - by definition - blend in. Once gauche behavior shows up, the culture is going to change. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. When opulent behavior shows up, you have someone with significant means to alter the culture and without the social graces to adapt to the culture they're entering. The ball to dominate is already rolling.

I grew up as "a local" in a tourist trap town. There were rich locals, and rich interlopers. It ain't about money, it's about attitude.

Back in 2003, burners were annoyed by the Travelocity Camp hoax.[1] That was a joke. Now it's real. A $16,500 Burning Man package.

When someone runs in a private water pipeline, it's all over.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20030801072119/http://travelocit...

Not much risk of that. I used to service the well in Gerlach.

The West is a trap, baited with water.

How does this fit into the Burning Man ethos of the reciprocal, gift or barter economy?

It doesn't. That's why it's pissing people off.

Isn't radical inclusion one of the principles of Burning Man?

no one is kicking them out of the event, but there's no leash on letting others know that you don't like their approach to the event and their interpretation of participation.

I went once, around 5 years ago, and I got the impression that Burning Man was mostly a huge party rather than a community of people - and that's fine.

Million dollar sound systems, pyrotechnics, and the kinds of people who can make that happen aren't going to show up at a Rainbow Family Gathering anytime soon.

Well stated. There are plenty of excesses to point to that have nothing to do with the small number of attendees making over $1M/yr.

Burning Man is a giant art party in the desert. It's becoming increasingly expensive in part because it's been increasingly popular, and so requires increasing facilitation (i.e. a temporary medical center complete with a radiology setup). Everybody that attends influences it, even the very wealthy, and the more interesting among these direct their influence intentionally by funding art and performance which anybody can experience.

Just curious, why do they need a radiology setup?

For all the rad people there man.

Bc broken bones I guess.

It's probably an x-ray machine. I doubt anyone comes to the playa for a spot of cancer treatment.

> Million dollar sound systems, pyrotechnics, and the kinds of people who can make that happen aren't going to show up at a Rainbow Family Gathering anytime soon.

Yeah, i'm not sure that would even be appreciated. Full disclosure: i was at the Iberian Peninsula Family Gathering in '11, and i haven't been to Burning Man (am kind of motivated to, though, in a sort of long-term TODO way), so that's my experience, but my impression is that the mentalities are rather different... I feel the Rainbowers kind of like their toned-down way of doing things (e.g. explicitly no stereo systems)...

Burning Man is a great week to be in the Bay Area. Shorter lines for everything, less traffic, more seats on the bus, et cetera. I wish it lasted a month.

oh the irony

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