
At Burning Man, the Tech Elite One-Up One Another - ZanyProgrammer
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/fashion/at-burning-man-the-tech-elite-one-up-one-another.html?ref=fashion
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lightyrs
I've only been to Burning Man once but based on my limited experience, you can
have whatever experience you're looking to have there. It's different for
every attendee. Some go for drugs, some for yoga, some for music, some for the
art (which was incredible and completely exceeded my expectations), some for
the community, and some for many more varied reasons.

If you want your Burning Man experience free of techies, models, celebs, and
billionaires — I assure you it won't be a hard feat to accomplish. There are
myriad subcultures within the culture of Burning Man.

~~~
crassus2
It feels in violation of the spirit of the event to have paid help in your
camp, but otherwise Burning Man is for everybody.

~~~
yid
Radical inclusion includes people with paid help.

~~~
idlewords
Referred to as "Sherpas"!

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ahlatimer
I wonder if they picked that name ironically. Sherpas are probably best known
for being porters and guides for Mt. Everest, a mountain that many in the
mountaineering community consider to be, now, a playground for the rich.

~~~
jmduke
Because I never get tired of this fun fact: the Sherpa people have a great
tradition of building new homes as a community whenever a marriage occurs, as
Sherpa families generally are quite large and live together until such
marriages occur. This is generally a pretty intense process, since the culture
has a huge emphasis on household deities and that kind of thing [^1], so
houses (and land in general) is a big deal.

I'm not saying that being a professional mountain climber isn't super
impressive, I'm just saying that if there was only one thing we could steal
from their culture I wish it was less about making it easier to reach high
elevations and more about building things together that last decades.

[^1]: I don't mean to be dismissive, I just don't know that much about their
religious beliefs.

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webnrrd2k
It reminds me of Wired magazine -- it went from a good alternative
business/tech mag (along the lines of Whole Earth Review) to straight-up
business porn. There are a lot of things that seem to follow the pattern,
where something cool and non-mainstream gets watered-down and diminished by
becoming popular, so I don't think you can't really blame the rich guys.

It's also not a totally fair comment because I haven't read Wired in years.

~~~
3am
It's true of everything "cool". Google, Apple, ESPN, Rolling Stone, Pixar,
MTV, Starbucks, and so on.

You can blame some of the rich guys for this, but for different reasons
(trying to commercialize them). Even absent that, it's probably intrinsically
impossible to be perpetually cool.

You can also blame some of the rich for what's happened to SXSW, Cannes,
Burning Man, climbing Mt Everest.. but that is more the dynamic of trying to
fill a feeling of emptiness with experiences without regard for the truly
understanding why those experiences are important.

~~~
webnrrd2k
Sometimes things are diminished in an "Eternal September" fashion, out of an
influx of people and ignorance more than anything. Other times, like these
examples, it's a slow gentrification.

BTW, thanks for the comment. I like how you tie it to a feeling of emptiness
with experience... I've been really making an effort to cut out all the
unnecessary junk in my life for a few years, and I've come to a similar
conclusion about myself: that it's much more about how subtle feelings of
emptiness and lack can "distort" my behavior, and cause a lot of pain and
discomfort -- even things that are usually considered extremely positive can
become painful. Even with a lot of direct effort to avoid it, I still fall
into that trap. All I can do is look at myself and laugh a little!

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aeturnum
This will be the first burn I've skipped in the last 7. Burning man has
prominently featured the rich as long as I've been going. It was no more "for"
the rich when I started going than it was last year. If you're wealthy, you
can hang out on the cool toys you brought to the burn and people will be happy
to ride on them with you.

That being said, burning man has never exactly been cheap, but it also has
never exactly been expensive. You can spend as much or as little as you want
each year. If all you get is a ticket, a used tent, and a weeks' worth of
water & cheap food, it can easily run under $600 all told (last year our
shared food budget for better than that was $150 each).

You make what you want of the burn.

~~~
magicalist
Yeah, this is a weird article. The author mentions going there as if to
establish their credentials, then holds up these billionaires attending as if
they're fish out of water.

Not sure about Zuckerberg, but I can find a reference of Elon Musk attending
in at least 2004 and Google famously had their first doodle when they were all
out of the office for Burning Man in 1998[0], more than a decade before the
author attended. Burning Man might be changing, but these people aren't
exactly interlopers.

[0] [http://www.google.com/doodles/burning-man-
festival](http://www.google.com/doodles/burning-man-festival)

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jph
Burning Man can be done on the cheap (somewhat) if you're able to camp in a
tent, or sleep in your car, or share a shelter with friends. Also, ticket
discounts are available ahead of time for low income people, and grants are
available ahead of time for artists who create projects.

Here's a good writeup of some of the artists' projects this year:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/30/burning-
man-2014-ar...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/30/burning-
man-2014-art_n_5632531.html)

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tdicola
Check out ToorCamp, it's a lot newer and smaller than Burning Man which are
huge pluses in my mind. The last couple times it's been held in a beautiful
part of Washington with perfect weather. The atmosphere and people that attend
are what make it great--it's folks who actually want to make things and share
experiences together, not people looking to buy status/culture. Next one is in
2016: [http://toorcamp.toorcon.net/](http://toorcamp.toorcon.net/)

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unquietcode
These articles need to go away. Burning Man has always featured wealthy
participants. Radical Inclusion is one of the 10 basic principals of the
event. We welcome ALL burners, whether you've flown in your private plane to
the BRC airport (yes, we have our own airport), or you've rented an RV with
your friends, or you've arrived by bus and are camping in a simple tent.
Everyone makes their experience as they choose, and as they are able.

That being said, it's not cheap, and it's never been cheap. Getting out to the
middle of nowhere tends to be like that. Your gear can get trashed, you might
require a storage unit each year, the ticket is $350+...but you know what else
is expensive? A European vacation, and quite frankly I'd rather go to Burning
Man. :)

So yeah, don't believe what you read in these articles, which seem to pop up
5-10 times every year just before the burn. At nearly 70,000 attendees you
would be hard pressed to make a general statement about any one group,
including the "rich bay area tech millionaires" that are ruining the event. We
welcome them with open arms! Let's hope they brought some cool gifts for
everyone.

)'(

~~~
presty
> These articles need to go away. Burning Man has always featured wealthy
> participants. Radical Inclusion is one of the 10 basic principals of the
> event. We welcome ALL burners, whether you've flown in your private plane to
> the BRC airport (yes, we have our own airport), or you've rented an RV with
> your friends, or you've arrived by bus and are camping in a simple tent.

What if the people BM includes don't want to include others?

From the article:

> Tyler Hanson, who started going to Burning Man in 1995, decided a couple of
> years ago to try working as a paid Sherpa at one of these luxury camps. He
> described the experience this way: Lavish R.V.s are driven in and connected
> together to create a private forted area, ensuring that no outsiders can get
> in.

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bane
If Burning Man was permanent, I feel like it would become a desert version of
the "Raft" from Snow Crash. It's close enough for people from SV to jet in and
out without too much fuss, but with enough counter culture vibe to attract all
the hippies and hanger ons to give it flavor.

~~~
tdicola
Who's going to live in the middle of the desert permanently?

~~~
vacri
Plenty of people already do. It's warm, dry, and usually low in population
density. It also tends to draw people who are a little odd.

~~~
auxbuss
s/odd/eccentric/

Has a more positive connotation.

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johnvschmitt
At this rate, in another 10 years, it'll become George Bluth's "Sweat &
Squeeze".

But, let's not say this is any surprise. It's the trajectory of nearly
everything that is initially super-cool/elite. It gets to the rich elite who
aren't cool, then it gets mass produced & mass-marketed, then it gets uncool.

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paul
I'm reminded of my favorite quote from Larry Harvey, "It wouldn't be a real
community without assholes." :)

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fleitz
From what I understand going from 2008-10 and talking to the more experienced
that it was mostly over by about '95-'97 after someone died and they had to
make a bunch of rules.

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reactived
Nothing is immune to the eternal september.

~~~
gwillen
I don't think Burning Man will ever have a true September. There's no amount
of money that can make it perfectly safe and comfortable, and it takes rather
a large amount to make it even modestly so, at least by the standards of the
wealthy.

Driving in is slow and boring. Flying in is fairly dangerous. Even if the
event itself can be made perfectly comfortable with enough money -- and it
really can't -- at least the journey will always suck a little, one way or
another.

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jedanbik
Why camp if you don't like sleeping in a tent?

[edit: the rhetorical point I was trying to make was not about tents!]

~~~
spiritplumber
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/experience/weekend/my-
weekend-...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/experience/weekend/my-weekend-
experience/2014/08/20/glamping-luxury-camping-around-the-usa/14281637/) People
are weird.

In this case, it's more a matter of "look what I can do with my money".

On a much smaller scale, I do the same thing by paying my two employees a
little above market rate, and then brag about it on the internet, so there's
that :)

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taurath
> Non-tech Burners who have been may “get it” but don’t like all this excess,
> and are starting to push back.

This is probably the most telling quote of the article to me - "tech" is now
code for people who live excessive materialistic lives, so I'm going to rant
about that for a bit. I work in tech and do well for myself, but its very
disheartening to constantly be compared by popular press to trust fund kids
trying to find new and exciting ways to burn all their money while the rest of
the world suffers.

But there is a ring of truth to it - there is a definite and huge change in
culture when you're hanging out with groups that make on average over 6
figures. I've watched as friends who are stuck in poverty or low end jobs
aren't invited to as many parties or events, because its uncomfortable to talk
about flying out in your friend's private plane for a week when that person is
looking forward to saving up for a new video game. The worst part is watching
people become convinced that its some moral failing of people to not have as
many resources as them. And then they just don't talk forever. That definitely
exists, despite a lot of very good things happening in "tech".

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frozenport
Its worse. I do C++ programming for E&M and am told I don't work in `tech`
because I don't make 150k+.

~~~
lennel
sometimes it is acceptable to tell your clueless family to fuck off

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lil_brown_bat
My take on it is that this is just another instance of people trying to join
the Cool Kids' Club -- or, in this case, to redefine an existing thing to make
it a Cool Kids' Club that they can join (or buy their way into). That makes
talk about "radical inclusion" (or its opposite) beside the point, because
they're not trying to be included in the experience, they're trying to
redefine it into an experience that can be purchased and that automatically
awards you with Cool Kid Points. I'd like to see Elon Musk's quote in context,
but out of context it comes across like the latest guy to buy into the country
club complaining about all that trash outside.

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thrownaway2424
Burning Man has _always_ been for the rich. Poor people do not have that kind
of spare time.

~~~
binarycrusader
I doubt you've actually been to burning man. If you have actually been, I
don't think you spent enough time looking around or talking to people.

People that shouldn't be there (financially) still find a way to go; it's no
different than many of the diversions we pursue in life.

How much do you think it costs exactly? Historically, as little as a few
hundred could get you there. Less than the air fare many people spend to fly
home for the holidays.

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thrownaway2424
Anyone who flies home for the holidays is rich, not poor.

~~~
bradleysmith
LOL, there are plenty of people at BM that can afford to do LITERALLY nothing
else. Regional burns too.

Your perspective of poverty may be a bit skewed. You think junkies can AFFORD
a heroin habit?

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wpietri
I haven't been in years, so my opinion may be a bit out of date. But one of
the things I loved was the way everybody was a maker, a performer, a
contributor. I loved how whatever insane thing I saw, it was a bunch of
passionate individuals doing the work. It was beautiful, and I loved the
shared sense of triumph over obstacles. Hearing about this would make me
second-guess everything: was the thing I was seeing an impressive personal
achievement? Or just paid for?

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iblaine
This article is looking at a small segment of burners and generalizing the
entire bunch.

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scrame
Burning man is just The Gathering of the Juggalos with better corporate
sponsors.

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api
Counterculture has to some extent won, which means it has now merged with the
system and is part of "the man".

~~~
vacri
If you have to buy tickets to experience it, counterculture hasn't really won.

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api
In that area I think they hit reality-- nothing is free, nor can it be, at
least not until we achieve some kind of true post-scarcity state.

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ianstallings
This sounds a lot to me like _" Do you even burning man bro?"_

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ll123
> And that often means everything from a meal to saliva.

I think he means salvia

~~~
megablast
Really, I thought he was referencing free love.

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toomuchtodo
Its not free if you're flying it in for the week from New York.

