NessaZee wrote:***
i do realize many awesome people entered that lottery and did not try to game the system. I trust that if these people really want to be there they will be resourceful enough to acquire a ticket through means other than STEP. There will be plenty of tickets for the ones who try 
We have friends in our community who are reluctant to talk to their burner friends because they have extra tickets, which is like bragging about having oxycontin. They don't want to answer the phone or e-mail because everybody ends up pitching them a sob story about why THEY should get tickets. (This Discussion is a perfect example.)
It's like this has become the Donner Party, and they're the ones with extra food. I can imagine that it's going to be an unfair and excruciating situation for them. My uncle said receiving a large sum of money was a "blowjob with teeth." One of his new friends killed him a couple of years later.
I'm not going to fake low income, beg to you or my friends for tickets and place the burden of decision on them, buy them from scalpers, rob somebody, prostitute myself, cheat, or cancel my plans to go. My upper limit to this process is my respect for the community and my own sense of morality.
Regardless of how much it tortures me, no dollar value or festival in the desert is worth sacrificing my integrity. My participation by any means necessary would not improve Black Rock City. It would degrade it.
We are citizens of Black Rock City regardless of whether we're on the playa, and you cannot judge us for refusing to disrespect this community that we adore, even as we see it happen increasingly all around us. Because THAT path leads to the ruthless, selfish civilization we seek to leave behind, which challenges and degrades what it means to be a "burner."
I will ask you all to consider using the STEP program,
and implore you not to propagate the toxic idea that if we don't make it to Burning Man this year it's because we didn't fucking "TRY" hard enough. 
