Alarming lack of critical thinking at one camp, BM 2009

burningmayan · Post by **burningmayan** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:01 pm

I'm putting this info here in the hopes that it will reach the largest number of people. I am concerned about the lack of critical thinking that I observed:
1) a speaker at one of the Sacred Spaces fora saying something like, "if your energy is properly aligned, then being infected with an incurable STD will not prevent you from doing anything you want to do." (this is a paraphrase)
There was no questioning of this raised at the time. I turned to a guy next to me and said, "I hope no one here believes that." He said, "The fact that he [the speaker] is alive, proves that what he is saying is true." (!! does someone need a course in logic?)
2) amazingly enough, I heard a speaker at one of these fora say that he was the incarnation of Jesus' disciple Paul! Again, no questioning of this from the audience.
I do not think that this is typical of Burning Man, but I thought people should know some of what is being said at prime BM real estate (5:15 & Esplanade).
Of course, good things could have been happening there, too. But there did seem to me to be a serious lack of independent, critical thinking. I do not think that such a lack, if it exists, serves either Burning Man or our society well.

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:22 pm

oh yes....lets punish these infidels...blasphemers.......

how dare they.

i am shocked, and a little vehklempt at this behavior....no, more like nauseated to the point of asinine intolerance, yes, i think we should burn them, like chickens in a ron popeil roastamatic.

then we'll eat their babies....and their puppies and teach these goddamn uncritical thinkers to fuck with us burners, i tell ya'....

shove hot pokey things in bad places....yeah.

make them lick my dirty places and then send the tapes to their hospitalized grandma, who then will die of shock and clutching her NKJV to her old wrinkly bosom, will die of a broken heart.

you're waiting fore the punchline, i know....

the aristocrats.

i hope this thread was a joke, because it is now.

davids4250 · Post by **davids4250** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:59 pm

Did you by any chance, happen to think of speaking up yourself? Doesn't sound like it.

Elorrum · Post by **Elorrum** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:08 pm

and all these years I've been using forums as the the plural of forum. I feel so stupid. Why didn't anyone tell me?

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:58 pm

Get used to it. There's a whole lot of feel good hippies who will swallow anything that lets them feel smarter and superior. Expect a cranking up as we approach the 2012 "event." Over on tribe someone posted a link to an article about ley lines which came to the conclusion that because when the author swung a pendulum over a map of Nevada he detected a vortex near the black rock desert. The poor twit who posted this couldn't even understand why the mere posting of the link lost him all credibility in my eyes. Sadly, your experience was not an isolated instance.

Post by **Elderberry** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:34 pm

Why is this any different than walking into a church and hearing someone talking about Jesus? Or a tent at BM for that matter.

If you wlaked in, heard something you didn't like or agree with, why not just walk right out again. People that buy into this crap don't want other people to confront them with truth or logic.

JK

Post by **AntiM** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:27 pm

I yet another conversation with a starry-eyed girl who is convinced the government is hiding the cure to cancer. As a survivor and with so many of my family contracting various forms of cancer, I get weary of this, No, there isn't one cure for cancer. There will be as many cures as there are cancers. No, it isn't going to be ____ (I think she was rambling on about avocados). I think a tiny little light bulb may have gone off when I said, "Follow the money." A cancer cure could be exploited by private industry, and their profits taxed by the government. If cancer cures exist, they by golly we'd know all about them because capitalism is alive and well.

Sure the government lies to us, but that doesn't mean every crackpot with a theory is honest and right.

Okay, rant off.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:41 pm

Shhhh

They're pumping the air out of the room.

SageV · Post by **SageV** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 2:35 am

gyre wrote:Shhhh

They're pumping the air out of the room.

Don't worry, they're also pumping in oxygen filled with nanobots that interface with the axons in your cereberal cortex to compel you to go to Reno and play long odds on craps after the Burn.

It's a conspiracy it is, you saw it, the Reno airport welcomed Burners at a press conference! I don't want to be welcomed, I want to be alienated and alty...don't take that away its all I've got.

...and while I'm at it... orbital mind control lasers, good thing their geosynchrnous orbit leaves me relatively unaffected while I'm wearing this tin foil hat, until they reach azimuth that is!

Who are you people, stop staring at me.

ygmir · Post by **ygmir** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:38 am