Cultural Course Correcting post by Marian Goodell

[wraith]

Now for some humor... how do we punish bad burner behavior? Well the BRCCP would have them doing hard labor in the FIgjam Cooler and Lag Screw Anchor Factory to make them for Burners Without Borders, overhauling playafied bikes, sorting moop, working in the lost and found call center, cleaning up the highways after the event and working in the outbound recycling and repurposing center.

I mean, it's pretty simple. Invalidate their ticket, throw them out, and bar them from attendance. God knows there's enough various cops on site to enforce it.

A few people getting very publicly bounced mid-event will rapidly change attitudes, and if not, well caveat emptor.

[MyDearFriend]

This might be a case where the heading writer summarized a bit too much, since the detailed text could be read as indicating it'll only be for camps that choose to be listed. (Emphasis below is mine.)

This year the WhatWhereWhen printed guide will include a short, 100-character interactivity description for every placed and publicly listed Theme Camp and Village.

This needs more attention.

In my role as a long-time volunteer with EMS I have seen, year after year, the limited-distro, not-for-public-display maps of BRC that show many placed but unpublished camps; these camps are marked as such on the EMS maps, with instructions not to share this information. I have often studied the maps and wondered: Who are these secret camps? And how the fuck do they get PLACED in such prime spots when they are so OBVIOUSLY not participating in our community in an honest and open way?

Exactly what role do these secret camps play into our "corrected" culture???

[some seeing eye]

To MDF,

I have been promoting anonymity as the 12th principle, after consent.

I'm friends of family of one of two startup students back when they were 2 minivans with a blue tarp between them. They camped near the Oregon Country Fair camp which had the only Internet connection. Once they were successful, we could never meet at their camp per their security advisors.

All of our security EIS nonsense is because individuals are not sufficiently anonymous and anonymously located.

I'm also close with the Tuna Guys. Very humble and fun working people who would be overwhelmed with visitors beyond their community. The BORG understands that.

I always thought that the event would end with a liability event, a tragic death with litigious family, or a wildfire in the camping areas, but now I'm more concerned about it being destroyed by celebrity or government VIP security, noted in some of my posts.

I'm awed by all the infrastructure camps. ESD has responded to life emergencies I found, and graciously treated me for electrolyte depletion. But there is a good argument that it would be a distraction to have people finding and wandering into infrastructure camps asking for a job, distracting them or disrupting their recharging.

All in my opinion, of course.

[Ratty]

Tiger Man Camp is placed but not publicly listed. Our gifts are scheduled with the placement team but not published. There are only 4 or 5 of us. We will install 50 or so foam and fur seat covers this year. We'll adjust your seat height, check the tires, tighten the chain if necessary and fix your butt. We have about 200 or 300 hats to gift. All styles. A dozen pockets to hang on your belt. Three dozen laminated decoupage art pieces to be set up in an impromptu gallery. And the list goes on. We do it anytime some one is in camp. We interact and gift. People are happy. We don't have a specific schedule but we work at it till everything is gone.

This is just one weird reason not to be listed. I'm sure there are others.

[Lonesomebri]

So the BMorg decided to give Forbes an article advertising Burner art to the wealthy. I didn't read the article but I assume it's the BMorgs terms for complete surrender on the cultural change of direction front. At least they can keep feeding us peons their assurance we are all in this together. Why advertise more? As if we need more attention. The org completely sells out yet asks us to fight for what culture?

[some seeing eye]

Mr Lonesomebri, I agree that the BORG should go dark on mass media. No need to seek more ticket buyers. The idea of collecting Burning Man art as an investment is mental. It works best as public art, compensating artists for living and production expenses.

[Papa Bear]

I did this new and amazing thing and actually took a few minutes to read the article before deciding what was in it.

It's just a garden variety puff piece describing some of the 2019 honoraria grant art installations. The reporter contacted the artists involved in creating them, and then wrote up a couple of paragraphs about each of them. The author is careful to identify each and every artist he quotes in the pieces. In contrast, nobody from the org is quoted, and there is no indication that the org helped facilitate it in any way.

Sure, he probably tracked them down using the contact info on the Honoraria awards list that the org publishes on the main website. But that's hardly "giving Forbes an article advertising burner art to the wealthy".

[Grumpy Otter]

Thank you Papa Bear

[Lonesomebri]

I did this new and amazing thing and actually took a few minutes to read the article before deciding what was in it.

Get back to us when the org tells you what to be upset about with the cultural direction. Thanks.

[Papa Bear]

Get back to us when the org tells you what to be upset about with the cultural direction. Thanks.

I don't take marching orders from anyone, including the org. I think I'll just stick to calling out obvious lazy bullshit when I see it. You're welcome.

[Lonesomebri]

Should people be able to sell the Burn experience? Build a camp and sell the space. Sell "home", like some sort of airbnb? That's the elephant in the board betraying any talk of real cultural direction. There is a philosophical difference in what culture we are fighting for. Not a issue of confusion or need for enlightenment. We have fundamental differences in what we believe regarding the Burn, home, capitalism, exploitation, etc. Not the $5 transformative words these cats throw around.

From the Burn website. They ain't shamed of this at all, it's the current design. Or maybe Forbes slipped this into Chip's resume on the official website without anyone noticing? Some people just might buy that.

"Chip and his company’s time-tested techniques have been featured in TIME, Fast Company, Fortune, People and The Wall Street Journal."

Someone wanna explain to me what techniques this this board member uses? We see that technique unleashed on playa, and complain about me not liking Forbes....

[Ungtartog]

As far as I know, Danger Ranger is the only board member that actually participates in community forums like this one. I do not respect leaders that cloister away from the community.

I would love to see them in the open air (so to speak) actually participating in dialogue. As a habit. Not as a special event. They aren’t royalty or elected leaders. They are community members. Like the rest of us. Let’s plot the future and make decisions *together*.

The survey system is a very uni directional data stream and only effective to a point for feedback… it’s not a very effective communication loop, and it is slow.

Come out come out wherever you are!

[Ungtartog]

I don’t appreciate anything that turnkey camps bring. I couldn’t give a shit less about what they fund. Expensive art is not important.

Radical expression is.

I’d rather rather see something you made out of grocery bags than some bullshit, chromed-out expensive garbage that was stolen from an image online and then produced by overseas commercial fabricators, so some douchebag can slap their name on it and get sparkly blow jobs.

Gentrification has nothing to do with radical expression. That is a default modality, and not novel in any way. No transactional relationships means no hired anything! If you are there to perform, you do it for free… because you want to.

[Ungtartog]

[quote=Token post_id=1177547 time=1549819148 user_id=339]
DGS created a privileged class. So long as that model persists, this will be a futile effort.

Logic Fail:

Jane Q Public - you get a random chance of getting a ticket.

If you fail in the general sale, tough luck.

Then you are told: “if you really want to go, you will find a way, network, hustle”.

DGS John Q Incorporated - here are your tickets. Have fun. Be sure to bring your gizmo.

Put the fucking experiment back into the culture!

Kill the DGS and open a collaboration space where the “doers” lucky enough to score a ticket can get together, pool resources, and build fresh things.

The BORG has forgotten how this all started - organic mischief.
[/quote]

See… this is where I want my “like” button. Criticize FB, sure… but eplaya could use an upgrade. Do I need a full on word processor to format my reply? Do I need to have the whole text of what I am replying to quoted for me with html tags. All I wanted to do was agree and support your sentiment.

[Ungtartog]

And of course increasing DGS means increased camp members which means it's easier for the ORG to hold people accountable for moop issues. I mean it's kinda hard to ban anyone when a red moop map mess is located in open camping as opposed to being able to blame a placed camp.

DGS is a terrible idea, always was and always will be.

It creates an elite class, an insider class and lets the ORG pick winners and losers.

Really, who cares if X camp can't make it back? Or has to scale back their plans due to "critical" individuals not getting tickets? Does anyone really believe if we don't have a pink heart, dustyfish or any other of the thousands of camps that Burning Man is going to fail?

OMG 70k people won't be able to roam around looking for content! Whatever will they do? Maybe spontaneously create content? Maybe actually talk to each other instead of mindlessly bobbing to EDM?

And what about the "if you want a ticket bad enough you'll find a way" plucky mantra chanted every year by the ORG and this board?

Every single ticket should be in the general sale followed by STEP.

Burn it down. Burn it all down.

P.S. Why are the OMG tickets 125.00 more than general sale tickets? Other than milking a desperate market that is....

Here here! I say get rid of tickets all together! That means no need for a gate.. keep the fence, for trash only… but make many unsupervised gates for open playa access. We can find other ways to raise money. How do we enforce the population cap? We don’t. BLM can do it if they have such a big boner for limiting our constitutional right to freely assemble…. and then we go to court and see if we still have a right to assemble or not!

The Bundy’s were all acquitted

[Elorrum]

The split in culture occurred because individuals who built wondrous things to bring and made the art such a surprise and endemic quality of the entire city, no longer were trusted to do so, and thousands upon thousands of new consumers simply would not be making anything to share. If individuals aren’t trusted to participate, then individuals are not supported for ticket access. A reliable commodity needs reliable production, and bigger was deemed better. They chose Big camps big giant things that need to be crowdsourced and subsidized, and thus are guaranteed to still provide the event the magic that is being sold. The magic that attendees used to accept as a mutual responsibility.

[Lonesomebri]

I was re-reading posts from 2014, BRCCP. Petty funny stuff. So, when did the BMorg decide to change cultural directions? Did we ever get that apology from Elderberry?

[Elorrum]

2014? I’ll have to read up. I think the first year they had the ticket lottery and giant art projects were looking at Swiss cheese instead of cheddar, wondering how they’d manage with the holes? Then came dgs. It was necessary to ensure people would make the stuff the borg was selling. Call all your customers participants, but make sure you sell tickets to enough participants who will actually build the event.

[Elorrum]

What would actually happen if they did all main sale one year? Staffing the event responsibly, a primary requirement. A cool thing no matter what, don’t you think? To see what people would come up with on their own? They would be encouraged to combine efforts, most already know how. Get it together quickly and democratically. Encouraged to burn however they are moved to. Those who didn’t get tickets, too bad, end of story. Require art, or proof of participation? Or nothing. It would require acceptance of seeing how it develops each year. The org likes to say it provides a blank canvas, this would be a real blank to fill.
No honoraria, no go fund me.

The huge institutions, theme camps, grown and calcified to guarantee entitled repeat attendance can be removed.

The art which has been commodified in museums and auctions is not connected to the principles any more. These huge administrative project managing what nots might be missed, but that’s just a matter of scale. There would be art, don’t be scared. I’m seeing projects pitched that aren’t even describable materially: people are asking artists, engineers, project managers, social media fund raisers, to join them, essentially employing them to produce a vision which they have no skills, or materials, location to build, or even a plan for. They recruit for even the IDEA which they cannot come up with on their own. (What is the museum of imagination?) I could do with less of that if cost and size are the only things big about these works.

[Token]

What would actually happen if they did all main sale one year? Staffing the event responsibly, a primary requirement. A cool thing no matter what, don’t you think? To see what people would come up with on their own? They would be encouraged to combine efforts, most already know how. Get it together quickly and democratically. Encouraged to burn however they are moved to. Those who didn’t get tickets, too bad, end of story. Require art, or proof of participation? Or nothing. It would require acceptance of seeing how it develops each year. The org likes to say it provides a blank canvas, this would be a real blank to fill.
No honoraria, no go fund me.

The huge institutions, theme camps, grown and calcified to guarantee entitled repeat attendance can be removed.

The art which has been commodified in museums and auctions is not connected to the principles any more. These huge administrative project managing what nots might be missed, but that’s just a matter of scale. There would be art, don’t be scared. I’m seeing projects pitched that aren’t even describable materially: people are asking artists, engineers, project managers, social media fund raisers, to join them, essentially employing them to produce a vision which they have no skills, or materials, location to build, or even a plan for. They recruit for even the IDEA which they cannot come up with on their own. (What is the museum of imagination?) I could do with less of that if cost and size are the only things big about these works.

Wait What?!

You mean put the experiment back into the equation?

Fucking radical man, just crazy radical!!!

I nominate Elorrum for Mayor of BRC!!!

[Canoe]

What would actually happen if they did all main sale one year? Staffing the event responsibly, a primary requirement. A cool thing no matter what, don’t you think? To see what people would come up with on their own? They would be encouraged to combine efforts, most already know how. Get it together quickly and democratically. Encouraged to burn however they are moved to. ... It would require acceptance of seeing how it develops each year. ...

...
You mean put the experiment back into the equation?
...
I nominate Elorrum for Mayor of BRC!!!

Shhhhh!
If mayor doesn't co-operate...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video ... aine-video

So often I'm dissapointed with the org. So much so that when they do something halfways decent, I'm impressed. And I ask myself if I'm expecting too much from them. Then there's the above that makes me realize that what I want, is the above: wish they'd stick to the Principals (like Self-Sufficient - no PNP tourist camps robbing them of having a true participation experience), staff the event, and then stay out of the way of BRC happening.

[Elorrum]

Token, you said it better and before: “Put the fucking experiment back into the culture!

Kill the DGS and open a collaboration space where the “doers” lucky enough to score a ticket can get together, pool resources, and build fresh things. “

[Token]

Damn, that was three years ago …

I suppose my opinion hasn’t changed much.

Good catch.

[Elorrum]

“Open camping and walk-in camping provide unique value to the culture of Black Rock City. Open campers contribute to Black Rock City in groups and as individual participants.“

An impossibility. And not supported.

You say culture, I say business.

Coming soon: “ The Multi-Regional Summit (MRS) is a gathering of community members with leadership skills or inclinations. In fact, one component of the 2022 MRS will be a strength-based model which may identify hidden leadership skills based on unexplored strengths and personality traits.”

Culture, bah! Sounds like a corporate retreat.

[Canoe]

“Open camping and walk-in camping provide unique value to the culture of Black Rock City. Open campers contribute to Black Rock City in groups and as individual participants.“

An impossibility. And not supported.

I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

[Elorrum]

“Open camping and walk-in camping provide unique value to the culture of Black Rock City. Open campers contribute to Black Rock City in groups and as individual participants.“

An impossibility. And not supported.

I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

I give up.