Billionaire Camps

[fciron]

Fer Chris' sake, Simon.

It was announced months ago.

http://www.burningman.com/news/080401_mccain.html

[lurker]

wow, John and Cindy were there too?

No, you've gotta mouth the RIGHT KIND of support. John and Cindy don't have it down yet, so they've gotta hang out at country clubs and stuff like that.

You gotta be able to say 'tax the rich' while shoveling in caviar on slabs of kobe beef while taking your private jet to replace the $10,000 an hour hooker that's grinding into your lap for a couple of fresh thai bois, while chastizing the middle class for wanting cheap gas to get to the point where some unwashed trustafarian will think you're a valid 'voice of the people'.

Know when I hate rich people? When they tell me I can't get any. When they tell me I shouldn't get any. When they tell me it's bad to get any.

That's the rich people I can't stand.

Don't go telling me how bad materialism is when you can, and do, have all the material crap you can buy. If it's so goddamned bad why haven't you given all yours away?

[Simon of the Playa]

"Don't go telling me how bad materialism is when you can, and do, have all the material crap you can buy. If it's so goddamned bad why haven't you given all yours away?"


funny you should mention that....


anyone who knows me and my personal history will tell you that i already did that, 12 years ago, when i left my position as president of my family's company, as well as my 10,000 sq ft house and Platinum Card to come to burning man.


so, neener neener poo-poo. i walk the walk, homey.

[lurker]

Not sure I understand.....you showed up at BRC with nothing? you walked out on your life to go to BRC?

Are you saying that you live without material possessions?

Are you saying that you took everything that you had and gave it away so that you could wander and preach anti-materialism?

Please, some explanation.....?

[Simon of the Playa]

Yep, pretty much...

some people called it a Nervous Breakdown.


I prefer Metaphysical Re-Alignment and Tune-up.


and i dont really preach about anti-materialism, as i am a firm adherent to the Philosophy of Post-Consumerism.

I gets my shit Fo' Free.

[d6]

lurker, yes, i can be an opinated, "mad" individual, whose fuel is being alive, and occasionally airing my frustrations with the "human condition".
and its doubtful that i'll ever "let go" of experiences that will resonate for me until i die.
i'd hope we all learn from our lives, and never deny our mistakes, occasional right decisions, our whatever motivates us.
everything we do adds up to our collective self, idiot-savant or other.
and if punk-rock got me to really research and learn about "reaganomics", so be it.
we dont have to agree, but to return your debate team jab:
<qoute>
"Hopefully, it is the pioneer dream of the future."

this year, my ninth straight burn, and i feel that brc missed that one, and it added fuel to my fire. we're always going to have different perspectives of "the same event".
this being my experience, and my opinion only.
i'm still glad brc exists, and can add to others overall impression of humans, i was just wasnt "being there" this time around.

oh, i "worked" for brc/bm-based events to earn the "gift" tickets for brc since 2001. (a contradiction, i know)


thanks for playing, this has been a highly enjoyable thread.


d6,
a torrent of unchecked rage in the passive-aggressive universe

[lurker]

To live, you must consume, therefore 'post-consumerism' is an impossibility

You can be anti-materialism, but consuming simply is.

Herein lies the problem. It is very hard to be anti-materialist when you have needs, wants, and desires that center around first making your survival easier, and then making your life batter(better being defined as doing the things you WANT to do and being able to fulfill your desires).

Right now material goods assist in doing this.

An economy of scarcity fuels the consumerism you decry.

Each person currently has a limited amount of time, energy, and capital, with which to make their life better so a mechanism grows up to compete for that limited amount of time, energy, and capital. This mechanism exists to tell people that this or that is THE thing to make ones' life better.

It focuses on various negative traits to succeed--most that can be bundled into the term 'class envy'. By making 'class' a purchaseable commodity we eliminate older strictures, but aquire a whole new host of problems--the materialist/consumerist culture we live in.

We cannot abolish it by getting rid of material--and, as I've said, we must consume to exist.

So what to do?

Well, we're doing it. As the price of material goods lessens, their availability and ease of access to lessens the actual need for the mechanism that exists to promote the goods. Why? Because you start to be able to afford to meet your wants and desires. Once you've done that it becomes increasingly hard for advertising(the mechanism that exists to promote the goods) to affect you.

To affect you, they have to develop new needs and wants--and that is much harder to do that trying to fill wants and needs that are self-referential to making your life better.

So they are forced to stay, for the most part, with what they have. Eventually this will result in a society in which needs, wants, and desires can be met without much, if any, drain on ones' time, energy, and capital. This, in turn, results in a society where consumption, while still extant, is no longer a societal 'fuel'. Instead more esoteric pursuits can be undertaken without worry for any material goods.

In that society you will have only the commodity of your mind and your skills.

In short, the way out is not back, to a less materialist/consumerist ideal, but forward, to a point where materialism/consumerism is irrelevant.

[d6]

lurker, i agree with that 99.9%.
thanks for that post.

d6,
eegah.

[some seeing eye]

Let's be realistic: Burningman reflects values in the real world.

The Cacaphony Society who founded it has always had creative Bay Area people, some of who later became rich off of technology.

The Cali culture is that there is no limit to the money to be spent (or fossil fuel consumed) to appear cool. That is the overall organizing principle of today's Burningman.

The organizers wisely engineered a transition from pure chaos and blowing up things to art, esplanade as midway and costumes.

Burningman expanded rapidly, hit the tipping point, and with November 1997 coverage in Wired magazine, fueled dot com boom show camps. When the dot com boom busted, Burningman became a vacation for Hollywood creatives. Now the shift is international, with single region camps funded by million+aires. In the world at large, the wealthy are getting more so and everyone else less so. It's reflected in Burningman. (prediction 2009 - oligarchs, future, Chinese entrepreneurs, not sure how the oil shieks would fit in)

While alpha males established the value system of grand camps with flowing intoxicants or grandiose artworks, newly alpha females who didn't quite fit in in junior high were back with a vengeance in an escalation of costume warfare. The ancient rituals play out with alpha males after hot babes and alpha females after tribal boy/girl toy arm candy. California!

So while Burningman supports a dopamine fueled utopian community fantasy, real world values are not that far away. And at 50,000, it's unfortunate, but not unexpected, that exclusionary tactics emerge.

The org tries mightily to preserve the image of burningman as outside society, special, non-money making, gift economy, utopian. Other commercial festivals, like Bonnaroo, Boom, Coachella haven't caught on. Not to harsh anyone's mellow, but for a business that makes money charging for it's attendees to spend upper hundreds to six figures plus each, and/or hundreds of hours costuming to impress, the image they have built is brilliant. Welcome to the new (post mid '90's) Burningman.

You can make it that you want if you go in with the right mindset, but don't believe the hype.

Better run out and create that business "festival services for oligarchs...Maybe the org should create a position oligarch ambassador to communicate Cali-burningman norms of behavior and appearance and connect them with grand camp building visionaries and costumers (for pay)?

[EB]

...that, or it's just a camping trip.

[oheric!]

...that, or it's just a camping trip.

That is the perfect answer to all of the "Must protect God" rhetoric that is flying around eplaya.

EB, you have just put the Zen back into my day. Thank-you.

[d6]

this has become one of my favorite all-time threads, second only to chai guys "someone to wipe my butt" awesomeness.

i'm having a much better time reading / learning / thinking here than i did @ brc 08.
far better responses and points being made, w/out the usual de-evolvment into sheer name-calling and personal attacks that permeate_________.

again, thanks for playing.

d6,
currently seeking a staff position for President Muffley.

[AntiM]

"costume warfare"

I am such a loser.

[chiefdanfox]

The Cali culture is that there is no limit to the money to be spent (or fossil fuel consumed) to appear cool. That is the overall organizing principal of today's Burningman.

I would also add that the Cali culture is that there is no limit to how hard you can work. I have been to a few volunteer meetings at BMorg HQ, and yes they have fun, but they are very professional, work very hard, and take things like public safety, inclusion and art, very, very seriously. I don't think there is a conscious effort to "appear" cool, it just happens that what they do "is" cool.

When one has an area like the Bay Area, with its concentration of rocket scientists, poets, authors, engineers, gamers, electronic whizzes, scholars and visionaries with progressive political, inclusive views, along side of hard working blue collar import/export and manufacturing types, one tends to get cool things, and not just the appearance of coolness. Something that is cool, probably looks cool. Something that looks cool could just be something shiny.

[EB]

...that, or it's just a camping trip.

That is the perfect answer to all of the "Must protect God" rhetoric that is flying around eplaya.

EB, you have just put the Zen back into my day. Thank-you.

You're welcome, though I can't take credit for its authorship, I find it puts a lot of this BS in perspective (including much self-created BS.)

[theCryptofishist]

The Cali culture is that there is no limit to the money to be spent (or fossil fuel consumed) to appear cool.

A state as large and varied as California doesn't ahve a single culture. This could be a legacy from all those ads in the 20s, 30s, and 40s promoting "Sunny California." And it's probably more Southern California than San Francisco, and it's certainly NOT Jefferson.

[Simon of the Playa]

Lurker, what i mean by post consumerism is this: I dont pay Retail.


i know, that's an old joke, but let me explain further.


Post-Consumerism to me means living off of other peoples perfectly good garbage.

i fix things that are broken. I pick up stuff other people dont want for some reason or another. I give "product" a second chance by re-using or modifying or re-assembly.

i salvage shit that others have long since considered gone.

I am TRASH MAN.



Now, to say that i am contributing to the CONSUMER side of our society is not quite accurate....I am the Cockroach that gathers the fallen crumbs, I am the Computer wonk who uses old Macintosh parts to cobble together a Unix Golem, I am that person who actually DARNS socks...

i know, you find it hard to believe. I am THRIFTY and i'm not even scottish.


Post-Consumerism to me is finding that Generra Color-changing T-shirt in a pile somewher, washing it,and then putting it on e-bay and selling it to some schmuck in Japan.


i use only cash, i dont have any credit cards AT ALL, i dont have a banking account, nor do i have any stocks, bonds or other financial securities.


i use cash only when i am forced to, as i prefer to barter for just about everything.


so there you have it, you can choose to define me as you like, it will not matter, for like the cockroach, i'll still be here, thriving, long after this society is gone.


by the way, are you gonna finish those fries?

[somekind]

by the way, are you gonna finish those fries?

Do you actually ask for the fries off the next guy's table? I'm always too embarrassed to ask. It disgusts me, though, how much food is wasted at restaurants.

[Simon of the Playa]

do you share at BurningMan?

why not in the default world?


embarrassment is relative, Shame is for suckers.


we all eat, we all sleep (ok, i dont do too much of that one) we all shit, we all pee, we all live, we all die.

what difference does it really make?

we as a nation make more garbage than Fox TV makes Lies.

an ASSLOAD..way more than any other nation on earth....and that garbage isnt really garbage depending on your point of view.

the old saying, "Hunger makes the tastiest sauce" is true when your belly is rumbling, and when push comes to shove, your shame and sense of embarrassment will fade quickly.

Fear not what others think of you, it is unimportant, and the only thing that matters is what you think of you....can you live with what you've done? that's the question...

My Brother is a typical Front-Loading Consumer....he waits on-line to buy his new apple phone, he only shops at Upper-End Mall stores and is a label bitch Non-Pareil...


i wait until he is uninterested, or even better, when he "breaks" something to swoop in and claim my precious booty of items he would have tossed, because he can, and because he's a pompous piece of shit who actually ENJOYS copious consumption and waste....it turns him on, i think.

In the grim future, my brother will starve, because he wont eat those fries.

[lurker]

It's interesting.

What does the cockroach do when there's no more garbage?

Because that day is coming.

I was endlessly amused with Star Trek when they introduced the replicators--particularly when people began to realize where the raw materials came from.

Dump anything you don't want into the hopper and make what you want.

We're gonna get there.

It's odd, Simon, but you fit into what I'm talking about(or perhaps I fit into what you're talking about).

You consume, because you have to, but you relegate it to a lesser status. What you consume is minimally invasive towards your life--leaving you the time to do what you want to do instead of fighting to meet 'wants' and 'desires' that aren't actually yours but are, instead, artifacts of the advertising mechanism.

You see the fact that we do not actually have an economy of scarcity anymore. There is Plenty all around us.

As more people see this the nature of comsumption will change.

[Cassidy]

so, um... Simon?

um...

...can I have all that stuff you left behind?
Since you don't want it an all...

I'll give you one of my french fries.


P.S. More to the thread... Not just Cali's make up the BM culture. And I like to think the "rest of us" add flavor to the party, be us billionaires or carpetbaggers.

[Simon of the Playa]

it's long since gone, and it's just stuff.

there's plenty of stuff all over the place...We as a culture have stuff coming out of every orifice.

what's more important is what stuff you value.

here in my hometown, we have a loosely knit Junkie collective that thru the use of cell-phones etc inform the other members of "really good piles"...

we also know each others personal obsessions, i mean Junk Preferences, and will alert said junkie when a mother-lode or cache is found.

not to quote the dead because i'm some ex-hippy, but, one man will gather what another man spills (actually a paraphrase of a parable, i believe)

I like shoes, and boots....I really only wear very high quality, expensive shoes...i usually only pay 3.99$ or less for them at the salvation army, or even better, free, but i like good quality, long lasting footwear.

maybe it's because i'm on my feet all day, and therefore this is important to me, i dont know.

my cousin likes multiples of long skinny items so he can make geodesia with them.

my friend Jenny never met a junk pile she didnt like, and didnt want to take all of it home with her.

the greatest thing, as i have mentioned in other posts is to somehow re-unite, or form a new bond between cast-off, and someone who really needs or wants that item.

no charge....junk karma pays in many other ways.


and is.nt it strange, if you think about it, necessity is the mother of invention, so those in need, those without have to be EXTRA creative and clever to live with less, or none.

i love seeing the thought process, the gears turning, as people figure out alternatives, and solutions and to quote pop culture, MacGuyver something.

That's the shit...there is the artistic / adaptive energy that pervades burning man.

it's something you cant buy, and if you try, you defeat the whole attempt.

having everything easy is not always as much fun, or as satisfying.

i miss the struggle, the sheer force of will that used to drive me to cross this country, in the face of mad stupid obstacles and consequences, to attend a fucking camping trip in the nothing of the desert.

i should enjoy the relative luxury that has been afforded me in years of late because of connection with a large camp, and my work for them.

but each year, my unease grows. something is not quite right. I'm dialing it in.

when things are so plentiful, and everything is there for the taking, i get a strange sense of angst that goes beyond mere philosophical dismay.

i begin to feel my own edge dull.



I think this issue, that is so hard to pin down, yet still lurks (sorry, no pun intended) on the fringes of many burners minds, is what the influx of wealth and leisure has done to radical self-reliance.

neutered it, basically.

[lurker]

Simon, there's a thing here that I'm not sure you see.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but consider this--

You can only live the way you live because you live here. The momentum for a culture of plenty in America is so strong that the entirety of plenty that will eventually be there for everyone's taking is already manifesting itself, in a small way, in our quality of junk( I say this as someone who has 4 pieces of purchased furniture--everything else was gift, hand-me-down, or salvage--this include television, I realised, yesterday, that I've never bought a television).

You can live this way because you're not truly 'in need'--beyond the great junk, there's a cushion you can always jump to.

People who are truly needy don't have that--they don't have 'good junkpiles', they don't have a society that's overflowing with stuff behind them--when they're inventive, it's because it's be inventive or die.

You've always got the option of throwing your hands in the air and leaping back into the rat race.

But if everyone did what you do you wouldn't be sharing those good junkpiles--you'd be getting everything you needed from them to survive--because no more are forthcoming.

Your lifestyle can only work, right now, if there's a whole lot of people generating the society that produces good junkpiles.

I think we're headed towards a culture where people live like you, but I'm thinking we're doing it by pursuing a culture of plenty, an economy of plenty, a situation in which you won't need junkpiles because the means of production are so efficient and so automatic that you can have whatever you want or need--new--and you'll be able to toss what's no longer needed back into the pot to be completely recycled into someone elses' need or want.

And we'll get there--I've been watching things like 3-D copiers and self replicating machines--but it's gonna take work.

[d6]

for those who can, "freecycle" seems to be a great thing.

as for the ongoing, never-ending "debate" as to consumerism vs. survival, it's usually dependant on where you are from, as earth people dont always only have a brand-decision to make.

over the next 6 weeks, i've got work groups coming in from:
Iraq (farmers)
Tajikistan (water conservation)
Ukraine (beekeepers)
Iraq (judges)
Poland (lawyers)
and i'll just bet that they / we, all are primarily interested in survival (aka familys well-being) first, everything else a distant second.

i suppose i'm saying that it all comes down to perspective, with the luxury of personal choice being in place after we do what we must to survive.

d6.
alive.

[Simon of the Playa]

Lurker, i am reminded of the documentary titled "the yes men" about a duo of performing artists who hoax major institutions for shits and giggles...

the give a talk in a business college with the business model being a fast food rest. that has discovered a way to turn human waste back into hamburgers, albeit only a limited number of times... A #1 would be all beef, a #2, well, slightly processed, and so on down the line until you get a #6, and all appropriately priced, and demographically separated.

keep in mind at the beginning of this "lecture" the two handed out anonymous
burgers to the whole class, 1/2 of which have been eaten by the time they realize that they are potentially eating shit.

so, Who will make crap for the Chinese? Will the American public actually accept a #3, when they have been eating #1s all their lives?

and, as you have correctly stated, after a few more Lehman Brothers lose their shirts and their cocks, will the American Economy be able to SUPPORT an influx of Freegans, and Freecyclers not to mention Freemasons?

replicaters aside, the fat and the happy had better watch their asses because the rest of the world, and even our own citizens are rapidly turning into hungry wolves.

the tipping point, the rubicon, has yet to be crossed, but our financial sectors are in UNPRECEDENTED DEEP DOO DOO. THE UNTHINKABLE HAS HAPPENED, and there are more SURPRISES down the very rocky road.

so, am I or am i not better prepared for the coming thin-ness, being already skinny?

[lurker]

so, am I or am i not better prepared for the coming thin-ness, being already skinny?

I think a lot of burners, in general, are better prepared for a possible crash--as long as it stays civilized. If it doesn't, I start revising my numbers downward.

We tend to view the fat and happy as sheep--when many became fat and happy by eating sheep--there's a lot of wolves out there.

And that's my point--without a healthy Lehman Brothers(I worked for them, long long ago) the junkpile you currently share will cease to be a divisible, renewable resource--you will be competing for ever shrinking junkpiles--against a lot of people who understand that the law of the jungle doesn't allow for altruism(though I suspect that YOU know that and will behave accordingly).

It sounds like you are well aware that the freecycle life relies heavily on the non-freecycle life that surrounds it.

I think this current problem is a result of the transition in economic paradigm--and I think we're in a race to get to the new one before the old one collapses beneath us and plunges us backward.

[Simon of the Playa]

i like you lurker, we should have a PBR and hit some piles together one day.

and yes, who better to weather the dust storms of a barren economy than burners.

as far as the vulnerability of the altruistic, thats why we will always have a warrior class, to protect the "good sheep"...

1% wolves, 1% sheepdogs, 98% sheep.

i have a feeling we are both shaggy herders, who punch the clock day in and day out, and the damn sheep never even notice that the forest has gleaming red eyes, hungry for flesh...


of course, as you well know, the best sheepdogs used to be wolves, and visa versa.

and the wealthy (at least for now) are not bad people per se, i for one think that the founder / patron of our camp, root society, is one of the finest men i have ever met. he is genuine, hard working, and he cares, ALOT about his people, and burning man, and the core principals involved.

i wanted to hate him, but after four years watching this man bust his ass harder than anyone in camp, and shovel shit like no other, and then turn around and get a glass of cold water for some newb DJ who is dehydrated and lying in a corner, i can truly say He Gets It.

I am honored to have worked for him, and he truly uses his cash as a tool for doing good.

i wish there were more like him. I hope that if for some bizarre reason i become a man of means, again, i will follow his lead, and share.

[wedeliver]

Simon, there's a thing here that I'm not sure you see.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but consider this--

You can only live the way you live because you live here. The momentum for a culture of plenty in America is so strong that the entirety of plenty that will eventually be there for everyone's taking is already manifesting itself, in a small way, in our quality of junk( I say this as someone who has 4 pieces of purchased furniture--everything else was gift, hand-me-down, or salvage--this include television, I realised, yesterday, that I've never bought a television).

You can live this way because you're not truly 'in need'--beyond the great junk, there's a cushion you can always jump to.

People who are truly needy don't have that--they don't have 'good junkpiles', they don't have a society that's overflowing with stuff behind them--when they're inventive, it's because it's be inventive or die.

You've always got the option of throwing your hands in the air and leaping back into the rat race.

But if everyone did what you do you wouldn't be sharing those good junkpiles--you'd be getting everything you needed from them to survive--because no more are forthcoming.

Your lifestyle can only work, right now, if there's a whole lot of people generating the society that produces good junkpiles.

I think we're headed towards a culture where people live like you, but I'm thinking we're doing it by pursuing a culture of plenty, an economy of plenty, a situation in which you won't need junkpiles because the means of production are so efficient and so automatic that you can have whatever you want or need--new--and you'll be able to toss what's no longer needed back into the pot to be completely recycled into someone elses' need or want.

And we'll get there--I've been watching things like 3-D copiers and self replicating machines--but it's gonna take work.

Lurker, have you ever been to Holland? No fat people first of all and they are very happy. They have developed methods to use everything, no waste. America could really learn from others if we didn't think we all ready knew everything.

As far as being inventive Albert Hoffman died beginning of this year. 102 years old and he would still use his invention all his life.

[lurker]

Well, wedeliver, there ARE actually fat people in Holland, there are fat people pretty much everywhere.. And, while they ARE incredibly resources ful when it comes to waste(I think it might have something to do with their need to keep the sea at bay), they do have all the usual garbage that humans generate. They may take care of it better--and we should be(and ARE, I believe) open to learning better waste management techniques from whatever source.

But I don't see the relevence to my post.

I'm pointing out that, in order to live a high recycle lifestyle, you need a society that generates the things that get recycled.

I suggest that we will get so good at recycling, if we continue down the path that makes production simpler and simpler, that no one will need to live off others leavings--everyone's leavings will be so easily reused--to make virtually anything--that we will use 'new' things all the time--and when we are done with them, we'll process them into the next 'new' thing we need.

I fully believe that we will eventually have something akin to Star Treks 'replicators' and that this is in the not-too-distant future.

And I am VERY familiar with Albert Hoffmans' great invention. Not as familiar, of late, as I'd like to be, but still familiar enough..

[lurker]

Simon, PBR? really? How about Meister Brau? The drink of choice for hot Bowery afternoons...

That wolves/sheepdogs/sheep analogy is interesting....have you read any Bill Whittle--he's on the right, but I read a piece of his in which he made that same analogy.

And I think we've come full circle here with your point about wealth. Being wealthy, or wanting it doesn't make one evil, or an asshole. Being an asshole makes one an asshole--and a lot of assholes aspire to evil.

There will be rich assholes on the playa, and rich burners. Don't condemn the rich--condemn the 'asshole'.

Or, be a bit patient and help them 'get it'.