Social media seems to be laughing its ass off about this tragedy, is it because the folks at burning man are perceived as frivolous hippies or something? Everyone I’ve ever met who was a regular burning man attendee has been a solid human being with strong morals, personally and financially responsible, a career. Upstanding members of society for sure. I guess all some people know is the sensationalized drugs and sex. A person died. This is a tragedy for an event that brings positivity into the world. Kind of annoyed.
Fuck your burn!
It’s not a tragedy, it’s life on the playa. Every participant knows this. The back of the ticket states that you could die out there. Part of it is survival. Radical self reliance.
These aren’t opinions, these are facts. Radical self reliance is one of the 10 principals of burning man.
It’s just a playground for the riche to do a music and drug festival pretend poor style. Or maybe it has something to do with a bunch of those hippies that nearly killed climate protestors blocking the road on their way in.
Every Burner I’ve ever met has been one of the most entitled, out of touch, morons I’ve ever had the displeasure of talking to. Let’s see where their “radical self reliance” gets them now.
I guess I grew up some next level poor, the only person I’ve known that went to burning man was the son of the owner at a place I worked. He wasn’t that entitled and moronic.
The CEO of one of my companies clients goes there and he’s an awful awful person.
Completely unprompted he once said that he was a liberal, but he had to vote conservative because the poorer people in society need the conservatives. So he wasn’t even prepared to actually own being an asshole.
And then he goes to a place like that and claims he’s going back to nature or some shit, all so he can morally self-justified having a stick up his arse the rest of the time.
I was unemployed both times I went lol. Do people not know about low income discounts?
Low income discounts for festivals, definitely not. I’ve never been aware of anything like that.
The principles are a solid foundation but can be taken for granted depending on income or association. The community is spurred from the principles but still has entitled participants :/ Interesting exercise
Because they’ve never been.
I found it funny in so far as just the other day, some of those burning man goers were blocked on the road in by climate protestors. The fact it rained and they are stuck there again, due to the climate, is pretty god damn hilarious.
The only Freude left In life is Schadenfreude
Hating burners is a perpetual pastime. I’ve never understood it. If you don’t want to go, don’t go. Folks form their own weird ideas about what Burning Man “means” and then bat down that straw man with misperceptions about what actually happens there. If you’ve never been: just STFU.
As a many time attendee, I’m concerned for the safety of everyone out there.
However I am also hoping that this might help lead to smaller events in the future. When I began attending, it was 12-15k people. It grew over time until it was 50k people and that really felt too big. Crazy crowds. Unsafe density of people whizzing around by night. And a greater feeling of anonymity / being able to disappear into the crowd definitely led to more irresponsible and shifty behavior by some. Once upon a time it was considered really bad behavior to just stop and piss on the ground but as the festival grew things like that became commonplace and fighting back against them was futile.
Now the festival is 70k people and I’ve stayed away for years over that. It would be great to get it under 50k again. I keep hearing about things like a full day wait during exodus and thinking maybe this will finally cause fewer people to return but it keeps not working. This probably won’t help either.
It just rich boomers. I’ve never met anyone under 50 who talked about burning man.
I love these posts. Yes everyone on the internet has a short, pithy take. Yes it looks cool to have no empathy.
Obviously everyone has their reasons, but why are we shocked that someone somewhere said something online that seems heartless or at odds with our version of the world?
And then when everyone explains that the event has a stereotype and there is a reason for that stereotype, and OP explains that, well, plenty of nice people participate in that activity, why would strangers on the internet shit on the nice ones too? And it’s like, yeah, this is what the internet does. Things get 2-dimensional.
🙄
That’s about right and I think we should do better.
The internet could use more empathy, I suppose. Part of navigating it, unfortunately, it understanding that shortcoming.
A person died. This is a tragedy for an event that brings positivity into the world. Kind of annoyed.They could take all the money it costs them and bring a whole lot more positivity into the world but instead choose sex drugs and rock’n’roll in the middle of the desert. If you want to see tragedies these people could prevent just go spend some time in the poorest parts of the city you live in.
By your logic, if you’re a good person but you spend your disposable income on a form of recreation that inefficiently brings positivity to the world, you deserve to be ridiculed and your suffering is justly celebrated.
So you truly believe that all the resources they’re wasting vs the fun they have as a group is a net positive to the world? I hope this year’s fuck up is enough to shut down the event for the foreseeable future and I won’t shed a single tear or have any pity for any of them that gets hurt because of their ridiculous recreation.
Do you know how much money is wasted on the Super Bowl? If there was an earthquake at the Super Bowl and it killed someone would you be there saying “Shouldn’t have wasted that money, serves you right!”
Is the Superbowl happening in the middle of the desert in already muddy conditions even though people were warned it’s not a good idea to go? Sorry I don’t follow football.
You better go find out so you know if they deserve to die or not.
My point is, it doesn’t matter how much you know about a subject. It’s somebody’s life. Somebody lost a loved one that day, and it was a tragedy regardless of how much smarter you are than them.
Do you know how many people in the world die because of the North American lavish lifestyle? A whole fucking lot.
That’s strangely irrelevant to the conversation, but thanks for the fun fact, I guess.
Would a resort in the Virgin Islands be more respectable? Sorry their vacation doesn’t look like yours.
Just pointing out that saying they bring positivity in the world is a load of BS as the resource wasted alone means their overall impact is negative to the world.
Are you bringing enough positivity to the world to deserve to be mourned of you were to die in a tragic accident? I would like to know where the line is, whose deaths are worth enough and is it only determined by what they do for fun, or does bringing positivity add to your score?
We’re talking about a specific event and it’s impact, talking about it bringing positivity to the world wasn’t my choice, I’m just pointing out that no it’s not something positive if you think about more than just the event itself.
Reminds me of the hippy drum circle episode of south park where they all get stoned and listen to jam bands and declare they are changing the world.
These people could have checked a weather forecast and had a lot of advance warning to GTFO. If you go out to the desert without doing anything to ensure your safety, it is mostly your fault if you get screwed. Same reason it’s funny when antivaxxers get measles and when COVID deniers get COVID. Of course it is still sad and the people responsible for spreading those theories should be punished, but it is sort of funny.
It used to be about spirituality and the rest including hard drugs, alcohol, and social media bringing in that crowd has ruined it permanently.
Boomers and authoritarian fascists don’t like to see people enjoying themselves, so watching people at a festival of joy, equality and happiness suffer is basically their favourite thing to do.
Bunch of people here are talking about who goes to burning man. So just to be a bit objective, here’s a burning man census they’ve been doing for the past decade
So it seems like just since 2015 the amount of people making over $100,000 has literally doubled and people who are poorer having the sharpest decline in attendance. Just shy of half of attendees in 2021 where making over 6 figures and that has likely grown…
Yeah I don’t care what happens to the rich people cause they will find their way out and have a ghost writer write a book for them about their experience that will be a top seller before they even release it. The world has become a playground for the rich.
That census just confirms the stereotype of the average burner being the most annoying person ever. Overwhelmingly non-religious but also overwhelmingly ‘spiritual’.
The second largest political group behind democrats (~50%) are non-politicals (only double digit percentage), aka people who are disinterested in politics cause it doesn’t affect them, so they don’t care (let’s be real cause they are overwhelmingly rich, college-educated, white, cis, and straight).
It’s definitely the group easiest to judge negatively, and being stuck at burning man is likely the greatest challenge they’ve encountered in their life and the cherry on top is that they’ve paid thousands for it.
Yeah God forbid an atheist turns elsewhere for making sense of life. Anyone who does that is scum worthy of a gas chamber or something /s
TIL if you make enough to save a bit of money in a medium size city, you’re rich scum, morally equivalent to people who make 1,000,000 your salary and give none of it to charity.
I didn’t say that and if that was your internal monologue reading what I wrote you have your own internal issues to deal with
That’s what $100K is. This thread is fucking trash.
Are you ok mate?
Census data does kinda prove the healthy wealth gap between attendees and the average American
People are children and repeat what they hear. 15 years ago, I would spout the same nonsense about burning man because of what I read on digg/Reddit from the same voices you hear now. I then met a friend who convinced me to go and I had an absolute blast.
For the vast majority of people in the US, let alone the world, attending the event is almost impossible due to cost, time, materials, etc. - it’s much easier for people that live nearby and most people within driving distance, the views of burning man will be more in line with your views - nuanced and reasonable. If you have no experience and no contact with the regular folks who attend, it’s super easy to bucket people into all these groups.
The reasoning about waste and frivolity is total bullshit — don’t tel me your bullshit vacation to Murtle Beach is anymore eco friendly. Or your plane ride to Bangkok to become more worldly is “green”. Burning man is an event, a vacation. I went many times as a student, spending only about $2000 all in. It’s a relatively economical way to have a blast for a week.
It’s basically this IMO
People are free to do what they want. It’s this self assured BS they use to justify doing drugs in the desert that the majority of the criticism comes from.
Had a close friend who became a burner. She compared her fund raising for a party to my wife’s political organizing. I can’t even wrap my head around how self delusional it is.
Yes, idiots exist in all contexts. If you gather enough people in one spot, a nice, countable handful will be dumb.
Well that’s the thing though isn’t it? Nobody’s saying their Bangkok or Myrtle Beach vacay is eco anything, nor are they vaunting some ethos, sustainability, life altering experimental way to live, Drugs, costumes, art, sex, whatever…an unattainable experience for the vast majority people.
You might see a selfie in Myrtle beach with a drink or a pic in front of Wat Pho.
If you’re gonna engage in appeals to hypocrisy, maybe you should try to find actual hypocrisy.
See, though, this is the ignorance that stems from not knowing real life burners. The vast majority (actually none) that I know do not claim anything eco about the event. These people understand what the event is. Don’t lump every one of the 100s of thousands of those who have attended over the years with the handful of social media starlets posting bullshit online. I promise many many people at burning man hate those who post anything about the event on social media.
Huh, so you’re saying we should ignore the people who were there and said what happens in favor of your criticism of people going to Myrtle Beach?
Holy crap, I just checked the actual numbers and their mortality rate is lower than the average in the population, they’re doing fine
So as long as Event Organisers stay below the average mortality rate, they hold no liability? They are doing fine?
OP: One person died! It’s a tragedy!
Turns out that’s a better mortality rate than outside the event, not much of a tragedy, more of them would have died if they hadn’t went to the event!
Outside the event includes people in their 90s dying of old age in hospitals
Generally the demographic that attends burning man skews younger which is inherently less likely to die
It’s a much higher mortality rate than the average event. More people died at this event then most events.
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One event with 70k in attendance lasting a whole week with the same people in attendance all week and they can’t leave. There aren’t many events that can be compared to it and the fact that it takes place during an event doesn’t matter for this comparison as we’re trying to see how many of these people would have died if the event hadn’t taken place at all.
Heck it could be considered good for the organizers, they should have had many deaths by that point considering the average mortality rate of the people present, they only had one!
the fact that it takes place during an event doesn’t matter for this comparison as we’re trying to see how many of these people would have died if the event hadn’t taken place at all.
Then you must be ignoring information to show the truth that you want the data to show. Events need to abide by strict OH&S guidelines. If an injury or death occurs due to the negligence of the event planners, they need to be held accountable. This means that a death at an event should be compared to other events because day-to-day life isn’t governed by OH&S.
https://sh.itjust.works/comment/2962187
The truth that I want? It’s the simple statistical truth, I’m not doing any interpretation! The fact that it takes place during an event doesn’t change the fact that the death rate of the population there is lower than it is in the general population so statistically speaking if these people didn’t go more than one would have died just living there everyday lives instead of partying in the desert.
Want me to do interpretation? You’re putting 70k persons in the middle of the desert in the US with tons of drugs, OSHA or not, death at burning man happens and it’s too be expected and considering the number of people in the place, the length of the event, what people do there and the country it’s taking place in, it’s surprising there isn’t more every year.
This year’s is not the first and unless the event stops, it’s not the last
https://edm.com/news/burning-man-2022-arrests-death
https://journal.burningman.org/2015/08/news/brc-news/we-lost-spoono-today/
No cause of death has been released for this year’s deceased, it might as well be a suicide, what could OSHA do about that exactly?
Heck, it’s written on the fucking tickets that death rarely happen (implying they do) but injuries often do!
LOL you’re really running with this line of thinking. Might people who plan to go to a week-long strenuous event in the desert lead to a sample that has some selection bias? For instance, selecting out the entirety of the demographic that is currently hospitalized, currently debilitatingly ill?
In which cause you should compare mortality rates with another group like that. Not the entire rest of the age demographic (which has all those sick people you selected out).
I don’t really care either way, just found this argument kind of hilarious.
You’ve got people of all ages there and the average death per year at burning man seems to be pretty close to one, some years even had three, some years had multiple suicides, some years had people die outside the premise from things that happened at the event…
Again, nothing unusual about one person dying out of a crowd 70k during a week. You can be in the best shape of your life and die of aneurysm!
Do you have any hospitalized people there? Because the USA has 919,649 hospital beds. Anyone needing assisted living? Because the US has 810,000 people in assisted living. Now the 70,000 number doesn’t seem so big eh?
My point is that ‘people capable of going to an event’ is already a helluva selection, especially when you compare it to the population that includes all those sick people.
I saw a long post about this on tumblr and they were saying something like, one person dies a year on the playa at burning man so we shouldn’t feel sorry for the one person who died this year.
So dehumanizing. I was reading that whole post in awe of how fucking empty some people are inside. Like holy shit that’s cruel.
It sucks for them but if you’re not losing sleep for the tens of thousands that die of starvation each year then I don’t know why you should feel bad for someone who intentionally went to a festival in the middle of the desert and died of something (we don’t know what) during their trip.
but if you’re not losing sleep for the tens of thousands that die of starvation each year
I guess I’m just one of those people then. the worlds problems do tend to keep me up at night.
I legit have a hard time sleeping. Because all I can think is, everything sure does suck and people die for the wrong reasons.
