On the technical side, we not only log but photograph everything, down to each clump of toilet paper. We check our progress by doing hundreds of tests identical to what the BLM does, both ahead and behind our main crew; bagging up any debris to be photographed on green screens where the pixels are counted to ensure we’re under the 2.29×10^-3 percent limit.
It’s a stupendous amount of walking, with no shade, a moop stick and a bucket. But it’s a hell of a feeling to be part of making sure we remain undefeated against an impossible task that the future of burning man depends on.
I think the main difference between this and 2023 (the previous "mud burn") was that this time we had all the rain in the first half of the event, and then had relatively great weather for the second half. In 23, it closed out with the mud and people fleeing, leading to a spike.
During the rains we were one of the few places still open and where you could party, eat, and grab a solid drink. Being on Esplanade also meant we were a shelter for people to wait out the weather.
Loads of great moments by doing that.
Fortunately in 1998 it happened after almost everyone had left. It was Tuesday after the burn, and we were packing up. Clouds coming in from Gerlach were worrying, we could see the downpour happening over there and heading our way rapidly.
We closed the trailer door as the rain started. It came down so fast that by the time we were half way to the road it became almost impossible to drive in the mud, we were jackknifing with the trailer, almost losing control. There was an RV also racing to the exit that I witnessed doing accidental 360 spins in the mud, they totally lost control of the vehicle. I'm not sure they made it out.
I heard that the heavy rain continued for a few day, and the cars that were still there sunk into the mud. If you didn't get out before the rain, you were stuck there for weeks.
Now imagine this happens on Saturday, burn night. People have gone through almost all their food and water by then. Then the rain makes it impossible to leave, for weeks. All the vehicles sink into the mud. You can't even really walk through that mud to make it to the road, because it sticks to everything. "Playa platforms" are what you get when you try to walk through the mud. Now add 70,000 people, running out of food and water, and unable to exit the playa for possibly weeks? That's National Guard rescue territory. I doubt Burning Man would be allowed to continue after that.
Ever since 1998 I watch the weather closely, and you can bet I'll be the first one out of there if it's looking serious.
These big events usually leave a giant mess behind. Glad to see they take the cleanup and restoration so seriously.
So much of our daily lives in society is consuming experiences that other people create: the jobs we work are defined by other people, we buy products created by other people, we eat food made by other people. For me, Burning Man is a reminder for the rest of the year to be the creator of my own experience in the world.
People keep raving about burning man so I kind of want to go but I wonder whether I'd just be slightly disappointed. Or whether it's an american media influencing europeans thing where expectations become overinflated compared to what we have here.
Many people seem to think it’s some hippy Woodstock or Coachella-esque event, but It’s more like an anarcho-punk temporary city, where your survival is in your own hands.
American media loves to bash it, and Instagram influencers love to flaunt that they went, but it’s most certainly not for everybody.
I don’t recommend going unless you do your research and really want to go.
I’d also encourage any first-timers to go solo their first year.
Those principles tend to attract the kind of people associated with counterculture and anarchists, but it’s hardly representative, especially when you include the family zone and all the specialized camps.
The idea that a stranger would effectively be a free Airbnb host (back when Airbnb actually had hosts) was baffling. Turns out:
1. Travel is expensive in time and money. Hosting someone gives you a travel-adjacent experience without having to leave home.
2. People who are willing to host strangers tend to be cool/open/interesting/friendly people. Opting-in to CouchSurfing is a good filter for someone you might enjoy spending time with.
Burning Man is similar.
One of the mainstays of Burning Man is the Hug Deli. It's like a lemonade stand, but instead of sugary beverages, they serve affection. You can order hugs ranging from warm + fuzzy to long + uncomfortable, each for 2 compliments to your server. Want an extra pep in your step? Add a kiss or a spanking for an additional compliment.
The staff at the Hug Deli are all volunteers. You just roll up, toss on an apron, and start serving. (The guy who started it isn't particularly affectionate. He's a performer from LA who wanted a way to get strangers to try on characters.)
You would never stand in Golden Gate Park offering kisses to anyone who asked. Burning Man is a container that allows experiences like that to flourish, because opting-in to Burning Man is a good filter for the kind of people you might be willing to try stuff with.
As she tells it, a lot of people had a great time!
It's just free hugs, but more theatrical.
Got a chuckle out of me there.
Why didn't you plan ahead and bring enough gas??!?
Well what happened was, we stopped at the gas station in Wadsworth where we usually fuel up the RV before heading to the burn. I put the gas nozzle into the RV and flipped the nozzle auto-shut-off thing up while I went inside to buy some last minute stuff. I came out, the auto-shut-off thing had popped and I thought the tank was full. But no, it wasn't. The scene there was a bit chaotic, I was distracted. So we only got about 4 or 5 gallons into the tank, and that's only enough to get the RV about 40 miles, so we roll into BRC with an almost empty tank. I did not notice this until we were actually inside the gate and the fuel tank was really low. Give me a break, I was driving for 14 hours, I just didn't notice the fuel level.
So we had some fuel for the art car, which I was hoarding, but when I heard they were selling gas for the first time ever at BM, I dumped all the art car gas into the RV and then got on the art car and headed over to the gas station with every available gas can we had.
Again though, any time you get such large numbers the "core" group will tend to get dwarfed. That's about time when people start noticing it more and think the hangerons are the event so the original culture is sort of lost to the zeitgeist.
And Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Elizabeth Holmes, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt... you get the idea.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-ceos-founders-attended-...
The idea that rich people are all right wing conformist republicans does not survive getting to know a few of them.
Unfortunately, money and power corrupts, and lo and behold, one day you wake up to find you have become the very thing you once swore to destroy.
Burning Man is to the stated principles what Kraft singles is to cheese.
Just more empty American platitudes, advertising, marketing; watch! as rich capitalists role play rural community their capitalism tore apart!
The Party in 1984 is not just metaphor for a government but any group that puts its rhetoric before reality. Just some first world LARPers telling a story about themselves while the output is there for all to see.
The average household consumption of electricity per day in the US is about 28kWh, which would take around 7-9 liters/day of diesel. Assuming an average US household of 2.6 persons, that's about 3 liters/person/day for electricity alone - does not include gas/electricity spent driving. So, at least for this camp, the average person is using less electricity at the burn, than if we weren't at burning man.
The fossil fuels spent getting to and from the event are more substantial than those burned at the event, but this is a separate discussion I think as to whether or not people should be flying to conferences, events, or taking vacations. COVID was great for reducing travel-related fossil fuel consumption, so we have the data and the experience on how to reduce that, but probably not the will.
The power logs are pretty interesting to look at. On average the generator is lightly loaded, so a lot of energy is going towards idling the generator, but batteries are expensive and these generators are not made to be stopped and started repeatedly.
The fact that it gets cleaned up is only due to the requirement to get a permit for the next year.
In 1997, BM was held on a private property, and the playa there was absolutely trashed, for as far as you could see. Bottles and cans littered everywhere. In the morning after the burn, I saw one woman was going around picking it all up. Others started to join in. It was not pretty. I think we made a dent in cleaning it up, but the trash was everywhere.
Unlike today, where people actually do make an attempt to clean up, but obviously some still do not give a single fuck about it.
From: "Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!", David Graeber, 2009, https://davidgraeber.org/articles/are-you-an-anarchist-the-a...
My first question is: but what if they don't?
The argument—to which I'm quite sympathetic—is that these non-anarchic institutions perpetuate the environment which incentizes "bad behavior."
> people STILL find reasons to burn to a crisp.
You make it sound as if turning to crime is less the criminal's decision and moreso nature's.
I have to say, I don't identify myself as a anarchist (maybe a bit of a sympathizer), yet I'm middle aged and finding myself a little dissatisfied by many things I see around me, so if I see people making the equation anarchist = degenerate, my immediate reaction is "yeah let's slow it down shall we."
Now, I'm aware that when you need to say something is "gateway" that's a bit of a red flag, i.e. "milk before meat" (describing something as friendly and innocent at first, then only later showing the more aggressive indoctrination) is exactly what cults do. Having said that, I'd grant that the late David Graeber is quite the straight shooter so I think he's in the clear here.
> Everyone believes they are capable of behaving reasonably themselves. If they think laws and police are necessary, it is only because they don’t believe that other people are. But if you think about it, don’t those people all feel exactly the same way about you?
Woah, mindblown! If you think about it, aren't you kind of a huge hypocrite and elitist for doubting that others can control themselves? Well, no! We know that plenty of people do, in fact, decide to act criminally and selfishly of their own accord. This line, and many others in Graeber's article, are goofy and I wouldn't take him seriously on this topic.
Start a topic on democracy here and at least a handful will argue against regular people governing society and their own lives.
That’s more than no-one.
If it were that simple, then every FOSS project would be considered to operate under Anarchists principles. After all, the license and software forkability made it so that no one is forced to conform to whatever social structure is used to maintain a given project. But in real life, Anarchists will still argue that a Benevolent-Dictator-For-Life governance approach is wrong, even if it applies to digital artifacts that have zero marginal cost.
There may be plenty of good reasons for them to argue that, but none of them are "very simple notions" as your definition would imply.
There's distinctions between power and violence (see Hannah Arendt), between social and structural power (see The Tyranny of Structurelessness).
And then there's this ancient Chinese text that has been slopified for a million management manuals:
The best leaders are those their people hardly know exist. The next best is a leader who is loved and praised. Next comes the one who is feared. The worst one is the leader that is despised.
The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly. When they have accomplished their task, the people say, "Amazing! We did it, all by ourselves!"
To me this essay was an eye-opener, both because it's well argued and also because it's so obvious once you read it. Even outside the specific niche of feminist groups in the US, who hasn't witnessed this phenomenon in action? Those supposedly flat groups where everyone has a voice, yet it's always the same subset of people who are heard and ultimately influence or direct all decisions? And the unwritten rules who are both invisible and "the law".
Some anarchists agree with Graeber's definition. A majority probably disagrees, in many different ways.
I expect this post will be met with disagreement. Wouldn't want it any other way!
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2005/03/butler-shaffer/lx-what-i...
> almost all of your daily behavior is an anarchistic expression. How you deal with your neighbors, coworkers, fellow customers in shopping malls or grocery stores, is often determined by subtle processes of negotiation and cooperation.
The Day Before The Revolution, U.K. LeGuin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Before_the_Revolution
The Dispossessed, U.K. LeGuin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed
Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy
"what a privilege to be tired from the work you once begged the universe for"
I'm not sure about the intent of the quote and its provenance. But for me the meaning is: To have wanted meaningful purpose and to get to look back and see that you have achieved that.
but the event isn’t possible to run without internet. DPW has wifi at every station. internet has become a core planning and organization tool
Seeing stuff like that makes me glad I left the anglosphere
Also, I have been to quite some anarchist places, but I did not found one without a hierachy. It is usually just informal. (But at times even formal and everyone pretends it is still not hierachy)
I mean, hats off, the author really did nail it. This is as honest as I've ever seen BM get, and the juxtaposition of the unintentionally contrasted with the title makes it even better.
Is this what's helping with that?
> the most striking trend is that the community has steadily improved at Leave No Trace
Probably not only? But shame and avoidance of shame can be good motivation
I live in Reno nowadays, and the locals either love or absolutely despise Burning Man, in the latter case for good reason: while Burning Man as an organization clearly cares a lot about “leave no trace” (as I've gotten to see firsthand), the Burners themselves have a tendency to leave pretty giant traces throughout Reno. A big one is bikes getting left behind (by people who don't want to deal with a bike caked in excruciating-to-fully-clean playa dust), and there's a whole supply chain of companies here that'll find those dumped bikes (or encourage Burners to bring them directly), clean 'em up, fix 'em up, and resell them (often back to Burners the following year; rinse and repeat). A lot of other, less-lucrative-to-refurbish-and-resell stuff unfortunately ends up clogging up every dumpster in town.
grams of garbage per humanhour unit
are there similar events in europe? you sound like an experienced oldhead :)
There are lots of people out there who would happily pay fines or not get deposits back if they didn't have to do the less glamorous parts of the event. You have to take something away that they actually care about.
If a camp does a really bad job at moop cleanup, Burning Man organization talks to leads to understand what happened. Frequently what they will take away is the camp's placement in the event, or sometimes even the ability to attend the event as that camp at all.
For reference: I am one of the leads for a fairly large and famous Burning Man camp. We camp on Esplanade most years. We do exactly what you proposed: We have deposits, and the more people put into the camp before, during, and after the event, determines if we offer them a refund and an invitation to camp with us next year. One of the factors is if you help us during setup and strike.
An invitation to camp with us guarantees them a ticket at one of the cheaper tiers. We have plenty of campers that come in, pay the dues, do nothing for the camp, are generally useless during the event, and bail out leaving a huge mess.
Conversely, we have a very small (10-20%) team of highly dedicated individuals who stay past the event and pick every piece of string, fuzz, fluff, lag bolt, rebar, and debris out of the dust and take it out. These people get nearly their entire camp dues back. If they attend next year, the social capital that they've built doing so compounds into them becoming increasingly popular and famous on Playa.
If there's one thing that Burning Man has taught me, it is that very few people are motivated by financial incentive. If you really want to motivate someone, figure out what they genuinely desire. It's rarely money.
Parents started treating "x shekel fine for y minutes late" as "buy an extra y minutes for only x shekels!".
This is why I suggested an increasing deposit for repeat offenders. Leave a huge pile of trash? Next year's deposit is $100k. Do it several years in a row? $10MM deposit.
Many camps did this, and were actually turning a profit at Burning Man by taking advantage of the community of volunteers.
A few years ago the Burning Man organization put a stop to this by decreasing or eliminating camps considered to be Luxury or Plug N Play. Not just because they were antithetical to the event, but because they became famous for a slew of problems.
White Ocean is one of the more famous camps in this domain. A luxury camp that charged exorbitant fees for extremely wealthy individuals to come and party without any responsibility. They had loads of sexual assaults, dosing incidents, and campers generally being shitty people. The leads also refused to pay the hired help. This led to a now-infamous vandalism incident.
White Ocean basically has a permanent ban on attending now.
You cannot incentivize people out there with money. You have to take something away that they actually care about.
Requiring a clean-up deposit up front will encourage people who were already inclined to clean up to do so, and encourage people disinclined to do so to leave trash behind.
The communal honor / shame culture that is in place is much more effective- people tend to care more about their reputation than they do money they've already spent.
The moop map, and community holding itself accountable, seems to be a decently functioning system.
Not to mention the administrative overhead, at the org level and at the camp level.
Frankly being a camp of 100+ people, not just taking dues but also handling this Deposit, and distributing the cost fairly?
Running a camp is enough of a pain in the ass without adding on this kind of thing.
Monetary incentive systems like what you're suggesting are just a way of enforcing culture. If culture spreads organically, why bother with the overhead of bringing money into the picture?
I thought of a few potential solutions but then clicked through to the journal entry for last year and it turns out they're way ahead, the journal article is very interesting with some ideas: https://journal.burningman.org/2026/03/black-rock-city/leavi...
2023 was a weird one, because of the heavy rain and so many people not being used to it.
But it also seriously churned the Playa, revealing what was hidden for a whiiile
Biggest problem is it’s a pain in the ass to chop up all that chain, and nobody sells them in pre-cut lengths.
Naive thought: I could use a large bolt cutter to cut chain links. Started trying to cut a link, felt it was sketchy, went and put on some safety glasses.
Restart cutting (had these bolt cutters with like 1m long arms), apply full force, jaws slip a bit on the chain, jaws bite hard. Chunks of steel fly into my chin and face, metal chunks embedded in chin, cracked safety glasses. Dodged a bullet.
Ended using a small welded up jig so I could stretch the chain and then use angle grinder to cut the chain links. Still sketchy, but no flying metal chunks.
Wish I had a plasma cutter.
Burning Man would get a lot less criticism if they dropped their 22 year old principles out of its 40 year run
Being part of a camp is the least inclusive social chore I’ve seen of any similar event, it is optional while making the “radically inclusive” trek a lot easier. Its a fairly high bar if you don't know the people
“Radical Self Reliance” can be interpreted in completely opposite ways when convenient. The person mooching off of everyone may call that self reliance to themselves, not realizing they are just attractive, while the person “gifting” resources to be around the attractive person can withhold it under the edict of expecting radical self reliance. Its a desert, are people really more or less prepared because that principle is taking up space on a list of commandments?
Larry Harvey didn’t expect people to make these things their whole identity. He was just having fun pontificating some guidelines in 2004.
The guidelines-now-principles are also outdated. Many “Regional burns” that have been inspired by Burning Man have added additional principles more relevant to the times, such as ones focusing on consent and shared consent frameworks.
Time for a new arc
Like if people can put in this much time and effort in a remote desert environment to meet regulatory requirements, and document their efforts so thoroughly, why can't corpos?
"Black Rock City is only allowed to return to the playa each year if it passes a strict post-event inspection from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM): No more than one square foot of debris can remain per acre (0.23 m²/ha)."
Surface feels a bit fairer in that sense. Or at least, easier to measure.
Does the purpose change how the act should be interpreted?
> A place of pristine nature is literally destroyed by humans with zero fks given
Burners give so many fucks that we willingly do a thing historically reserved for punishment in the military (de-mooping)
> in a manner where it can never be recovered from.
Environmental sustainability is an actual goal not just greenwashing. I encourage you too look into Playa Resto https://journal.burningman.org/2022/10/black-rock-city/leavi... and note that the term volunteer is used meaning these people don't get paid.
in a year where the world cup is taking place, counter-examples are readily available in numbers. I doubt FIFA will be releasing environmental impact datasets...
It's literally written to refute your point.
