
Cultural Course Correcting: Black Rock City 2019 - eplanit
https://journal.burningman.org/2019/02/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/cultural-course-correcting/
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johan_larson
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

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

~~~
johan_larson
Mandatory nudity from ankles to eyebrows, sunrise to sunset.

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econner
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.

~~~
taurath
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.

~~~
srmatto
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.

~~~
bluntfang
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.

~~~
taurath
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.

~~~
bluntfang
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.

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localhost3000
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.

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juvoni
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.

~~~
aeontech
> \- 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!

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jackfoxy
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.

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

~~~
gojomo
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).

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binarymax
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).

~~~
umeshunni
> 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.

~~~
ajhurliman
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.

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Animats
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.

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tonymet
It takes effort to have values and stick to them.

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

[https://journal.burningman.org/2019/02/philosophical-
center/...](https://journal.burningman.org/2019/02/philosophical-
center/tenprinciples/cultural-course-correcting/)

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

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jdpedrie
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.

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Aloha
I think its a gannet standard template

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nraynaud
yep, there is a Phoenix newspaper like that too.

