My problem is that all of these sherpas need a ticket, and available tickets are not plentiful.
it means that someone who really wants to go to Burning Man misses out because someone is WORKING, rather than being a participant.
That is an EXCELLENT point that I heretofore had not considered.
maladroit wrote:Well, unjonharley brings up a good point that not much of this can be PROVEN. Yet. We have a few stories. These camps don't even exist anymore...and the people who DID read the contracts might have a good reason for staying quiet for now. It doesn't really matter if a contract is bad faith or unenforceable if you can't pay a lawyer to explain that to a judge.
H.G.Crosby wrote:My problem is that all of these sherpas need a ticket, and available tickets are not plentiful.
it means that someone who really wants to go to Burning Man misses out because someone is WORKING, rather than being a participant.
That is an EXCELLENT point that I heretofore had not considered.
seriously?
SERIOUSLY?
either you're trolling me, you're an idiot, or you have no clue....
which is it?
I totally agree.
Ok. Then I'll be a lawyer over here.graidawg wrote:lets not be lawyers here.
I see where you are coming from, but let me flip that over for a second and play devils advocate: You want to take people ("Sherpas") who got handed a free ticket to Burning Man knowing full well they were going to be service staff for a PNP. Rather than think a few radically-reliant steps ahead, these same "burners" brought no way of supporting themselves independent of the PNP. So what you are proposing is to give these people a free place to camp after they breach their contract and even give them a free ride off the playa? Maybe in hyper-extreme cases I could swing with this, but count me out for a "Save The Sherpas" movement. I'm not going to assist in creating the equivalent of the Black Rock City dole queue.graidawg wrote: we should certainly do is go to those camps and tell the staff they can leave and we have ways to look after them. and if they need a ride home - well we can sort that too.
They will simply change the terms of the contract and add liquidated damages. Trust me.graidawg wrote:The big PnP camps will very quickly change how they operate if they know the staff can just walk away - sure they get no pay, but tehy do get to go to burning man, so they will offer better pay, shorter hours (more staff i guess). after all how many millionare are going to leave and demand a rfund when they find out they need to mix drinks themselves.
NO. Wrong. Absolutely NOT. If you don't like wifi then don't use it. Lots of folks bring music or run a broadcast FM transmitter, or have a cell phone, satellite phone, or amateur radio gear. How is this any different from wifi? Why do you care who uses what to communicate? What logic is there in trying to turn all of BRC into a signal-free zone? If wifi isn't your cup of tea then feel free to walk 50 in any other direction and ignore it. Wifi is undetectable by the human senses and hurts absolutely no one. You are on a slippery slope when you start making knee-jerk rules like this based on your personal preference.graidawg wrote: also while we are at it. stop putting up wifi transmitters. dont bring defaultia to BM anymore than we have to - if you do realy really need wifi switch it on when you need it then put it away again.
Excellent reply, and IMO, the best yet on this topic. Nothing more to add that could make it better.Ano wrote:I hated Plug n Plays until I actually engaged with one, and the members of one.
Now I get it.
It doesn't matter what amenities you return home to at the end of the evening. RV, tent, cot underneath a truck, whatever. In the end, we're all dust colored out on the open playa. In the end, we all have to piss inside a bottle or a porto-potty when out in the open playa. In the end, the person standing next to you in line for Ice could be a millionaire, or they could be Will Smith, or they could be a Receptionist. Worrying about an RV fortress that someone goes home to is a waste of energy and time. It doesn't matter. First Camp has a fucking fence around it, and nobody is complaining about that. Those PnP camps that are RV fortresses? Walk over to one. Say hello. I know the Strawman is that they'll tell you to fuck off, but my experience drinking Long Island's and shitting with running water says differently.
After all, some of the most PnP experiences on Playa can be had at Staff camps, first camp, or even within your own camp. Our camp had an RV with a freezer and Ice-maker that we used all week. Are we plugging and playing for napping in that sucker when it was 120 degrees out, or when we used the ice maker? I was able to eat at the commissary, three times a day, for a week. I didn't have to bring out any food, whatsoever, and on top of that, I received fresh food delivered from Reno to eat in that building. All I had to do for that was "volunteer," and honestly, my "volunteer" time is some of the most fun I have on Playa, so I don't even consider it work. The group I volunteer for has one of the most exclusive bars on the Playa, we straight up harass people out of it if they aren't even loosely associated with us. PnP bars are WAY more open than ours.
Stop worrying about rich people. Guess what? They are going to sleep in Tour Busses with air conditioning and hot meals cooked for them. They'll have workers helping them out. And there's no amount of words on the internet that will change that. However, these same rich people will then ride their segways or tricycles or whatever out on to the playa, and have the same burning man experiences that fundamentally change you, and then they'll bring them home to their friends, who will then come to Burning Man, and repeat. They'll still get dusty. They'll still get lost in the dust storm and have a hard time finding their way home. They'll shit in the same deep playa porto potties you shit in while lost on acid at four in the morning looking for the city. They'll pick up the same MOOP. And, hell, they might even visit the same camp you do or engage in some art. They might even be visiting your camp and talking with you about their favorite colors! WHAT?! OH GOD!
If anything, we should see these walled fortresses as success. Burning Man is so wildly fucking succesful that it attracts the rich and famous and political, like Grover Norquist, out to see what the fuck this desert city is. And then, these rich and famous and political people take the weird shit they experience, translate it for the default, and bring it home.
Fuck you if you think Burning Man is only authentic if you shit in your hand and sleep in the dust. Fuck that, I'm bringing an RV or trailer next year, and it only took me four years to admit that I was an idiot for thinking that what you slept in created your entire experience. After having a big wide open camp last year, we walled off parts of our camp this year so we could have some private space. Almost every theme camp I know of does this. Is it any better if it's a wall of carports instead of a wall of RVs?
Fun fact, directly from a guy who runs one of the longest and largest PnP camps on Playa: Most PnP campers are first or second year Burners, who then go on to fund and build their own camps and art. Plain and simple fact. There was not a single person in his camp who had been more than two years, and he had yet to hear of someone dropping out and never returning after year two. Many of his campers have gone on to help build some of the biggest and best camps that we see on the big streets. Some of them have even moved on to volunteering within the Org fulltime under one of their umbrellas (DMV, ESD, DPW, etc). Are they any less of a burner because they started there? What about the virgin friend you bring one year and do everything for? Is there really that big of a difference between your virgin friend you help bring to the dust and the tons of virgins he helps bring to the dust and acculturate?
And who really gets to dictate who the best use of a ticket is? If someone gets a ticket, they get a ticket. Simple as that. If you didn't get one, you didn't get one. Fight for your ticket if you really want to go. I volunteer 50+ hours a week so that I can guarantee mine. Some folks build art. Others build camps. If your entire playa experience is based around doing whatever you feel like and then complaining about it on the Internet afterwards because people didn't burn how you wanted them to, perhaps you should reconsider your ticket-acquiring-strategies.
If anything, I take it as a remarkable success that there are rich and famous people flying out to see the party we put on. That's fucking awesome. I don't pretend to be offended and upset because the guy next to me at Robot Heart during the sunrise is a multi-millionaire. I've realized that it's a waste of time to care.
All that I want to say is that I find it beyond depressing when I come across people in BRC who are using a smart phone to text while. I live in NYC and at this point in time I'd say that 95% of people in NYC who are between the ages of 12 and 65 are smart phone addicts. I hate seeing that kind of self-imposed mental illness on a daily basis and I hate seeing it in BRC. I camped in the French Quarter in '12 and '13 and in '12 I was walking through one of the alleys in our village when I came across a young man sitting on the ground while he was texting on his iphone. He had the same distant, glazed look that most smart phone addicts have. It was one of the saddest things that I've ever seen; a young man who was in the most amazing place on earth was clearly lost to his addiction to a stupid little machine. So, while I'm not going to get into a debate about whether or not BRC should be wifi free I will say that I despise seeing the plague of smart phone addiction infesting BRC. Part of the wonder of the place is that it's off the grid while being filled with all kinds of modern technology. I just wish that BRC was still free of the type of smart phone related behavior that's transformed NYC into a city of device addicts.GreyCoyote wrote:NO. Wrong. Absolutely NOT. If you don't like wifi then don't use it. Lots of folks bring music or run a broadcast FM transmitter, or have a cell phone, satellite phone, or amateur radio gear. How is this any different from wifi? Why do you care who uses what to communicate? What logic is there in trying to turn all of BRC into a signal-free zone? If wifi isn't your cup of tea then feel free to walk 50 in any other direction and ignore it. Wifi is undetectable by the human senses and hurts absolutely no one. You are on a slippery slope when you start making knee-jerk rules like this based on your personal preference.
i'm pretty sure whatever someone signs if the law is being broken it doesnt matter what they signed. and yea sure the camps will use better contracts but, this is the point rich people wont trust them anymore so they wont pay.GreyCoyote wrote:Graid: On this side of the pond, those kind of contracts are enforced daily. Put an arbitration clause in there and the Sherpas just SIGNED AWAY THEIR RIGHT TO A JUDGE AND JURY. Nobody reads this stuff. They just sign it. Even if they did read it, they have no idea what it means.
This monkey business with contracts WILL be the response of the PNPs once Save The Sherpa gets some traction.
He shoots. He scores.unjonharley wrote:There are camps for recovering text addicts...
you are generalizing. do you have any proof that *all* of these camps abuse their workers? or just that one anonymous post? if so, I'd like to see, and lets hear some possible solutions. if the BMorg is involved in selling these things that sucks, but again, what are you going to do about it?Roberto Dobbisano wrote:thats all fine and good until they pay people to get shit on.
and thats what we are discussing....the abuses of the plug and plays and it's effect on burning man and it's culture.
if you think this is much ado about nothing than i feel sorry for your soul, or whats left of it.
ranger magnum wrote:Excellent reply, and IMO, the best yet on this topic. Nothing more to add that could make it better.Ano wrote:I hated Plug n Plays until I actually engaged with one, and the members of one.
Now I get it.
It doesn't matter what amenities you return home to at the end of the evening. RV, tent, cot underneath a truck, whatever. In the end, we're all dust colored out on the open playa. In the end, we all have to piss inside a bottle or a porto-potty when out in the open playa. In the end, the person standing next to you in line for Ice could be a millionaire, or they could be Will Smith, or they could be a Receptionist. Worrying about an RV fortress that someone goes home to is a waste of energy and time. It doesn't matter. First Camp has a fucking fence around it, and nobody is complaining about that. Those PnP camps that are RV fortresses? Walk over to one. Say hello. I know the Strawman is that they'll tell you to fuck off, but my experience drinking Long Island's and shitting with running water says differently.
After all, some of the most PnP experiences on Playa can be had at Staff camps, first camp, or even within your own camp. Our camp had an RV with a freezer and Ice-maker that we used all week. Are we plugging and playing for napping in that sucker when it was 120 degrees out, or when we used the ice maker? I was able to eat at the commissary, three times a day, for a week. I didn't have to bring out any food, whatsoever, and on top of that, I received fresh food delivered from Reno to eat in that building. All I had to do for that was "volunteer," and honestly, my "volunteer" time is some of the most fun I have on Playa, so I don't even consider it work. The group I volunteer for has one of the most exclusive bars on the Playa, we straight up harass people out of it if they aren't even loosely associated with us. PnP bars are WAY more open than ours.
Stop worrying about rich people. Guess what? They are going to sleep in Tour Busses with air conditioning and hot meals cooked for them. They'll have workers helping them out. And there's no amount of words on the internet that will change that. However, these same rich people will then ride their segways or tricycles or whatever out on to the playa, and have the same burning man experiences that fundamentally change you, and then they'll bring them home to their friends, who will then come to Burning Man, and repeat. They'll still get dusty. They'll still get lost in the dust storm and have a hard time finding their way home. They'll shit in the same deep playa porto potties you shit in while lost on acid at four in the morning looking for the city. They'll pick up the same MOOP. And, hell, they might even visit the same camp you do or engage in some art. They might even be visiting your camp and talking with you about their favorite colors! WHAT?! OH GOD!
If anything, we should see these walled fortresses as success. Burning Man is so wildly fucking succesful that it attracts the rich and famous and political, like Grover Norquist, out to see what the fuck this desert city is. And then, these rich and famous and political people take the weird shit they experience, translate it for the default, and bring it home.
Fuck you if you think Burning Man is only authentic if you shit in your hand and sleep in the dust. Fuck that, I'm bringing an RV or trailer next year, and it only took me four years to admit that I was an idiot for thinking that what you slept in created your entire experience. After having a big wide open camp last year, we walled off parts of our camp this year so we could have some private space. Almost every theme camp I know of does this. Is it any better if it's a wall of carports instead of a wall of RVs?
Fun fact, directly from a guy who runs one of the longest and largest PnP camps on Playa: Most PnP campers are first or second year Burners, who then go on to fund and build their own camps and art. Plain and simple fact. There was not a single person in his camp who had been more than two years, and he had yet to hear of someone dropping out and never returning after year two. Many of his campers have gone on to help build some of the biggest and best camps that we see on the big streets. Some of them have even moved on to volunteering within the Org fulltime under one of their umbrellas (DMV, ESD, DPW, etc). Are they any less of a burner because they started there? What about the virgin friend you bring one year and do everything for? Is there really that big of a difference between your virgin friend you help bring to the dust and the tons of virgins he helps bring to the dust and acculturate?
And who really gets to dictate who the best use of a ticket is? If someone gets a ticket, they get a ticket. Simple as that. If you didn't get one, you didn't get one. Fight for your ticket if you really want to go. I volunteer 50+ hours a week so that I can guarantee mine. Some folks build art. Others build camps. If your entire playa experience is based around doing whatever you feel like and then complaining about it on the Internet afterwards because people didn't burn how you wanted them to, perhaps you should reconsider your ticket-acquiring-strategies.
If anything, I take it as a remarkable success that there are rich and famous people flying out to see the party we put on. That's fucking awesome. I don't pretend to be offended and upset because the guy next to me at Robot Heart during the sunrise is a multi-millionaire. I've realized that it's a waste of time to care.
Sandstorm wrote:So, while I'm not going to get into a debate about whether or not BRC should be wifi free I will say that I despise seeing the plague of smart phone addiction infesting BRC. Part of the wonder of the place is that it's off the grid while being filled with all kinds of modern technology. I just wish that BRC was still free of the type of smart phone related behavior that's transformed NYC into a city of device addicts.
littleflower wrote:you are generalizing. do you have any proof that *all* of these camps abuse their workers? or just that one anonymous post? if so, I'd like to see, and lets hear some possible solutions. if the BMorg is involved in selling these things that sucks, but again, what are you going to do about it?Roberto Dobbisano wrote:thats all fine and good until they pay people to get shit on.
and thats what we are discussing....the abuses of the plug and plays and it's effect on burning man and it's culture.
if you think this is much ado about nothing than i feel sorry for your soul, or whats left of it.
and i STILL have no problem with rich people bringing workers with them, other than their taking tickets away from real burners. if i could afford it i would pay some people to help me out, but i would be a very nice employer. you assume the worst of people....
Roberto Dobbisano wrote:um, TG....pot...kettle...pitch fucking black....
don't make me pull up the post because i will.
