Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Burning Man pt. 2

Transcript

Burning Man pt. 2 · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why We Do what we Do. Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why We Do what We Do. I am your
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: parched host Abraham and I.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Am your so very sun burnt host Shane.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: that humans and non human animals do, and we are
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: following up last week's episode with a part two, So
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the conclusion to our discussion about burning Man. So if
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: you did not hear that parts, there's a lot of
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: foundation in there that would definitely help this next part
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: make more sense. But if you want to just listen
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to this part, then I can't stop you. So do
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: whatever you're going to do. But I do think you
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: can get more context and more background from where we
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: started if you want to go back and check going out.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: But whatever, here you are, so thanks for being here,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: shanded either way, because you are here, and it happens
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to be January the twenty eighth. I'd like to wish
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: you all a happy American Immigration Lawyers Association Day of Action.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sorely needed right now. Yeah, So if you are
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: American immigration lawyer.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Buckle up. You're gonna be busy for a little while. Yeah.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Good luck to you.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good luck to you if we can. If we
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: can help, please let us know. We'll share where we
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: can send donations or grants or whatever.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: It is also Christa mcaulliffe Day. I believe that's how
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: you pronounce her name.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we didn't look that up. I know I should
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: have looked that up.
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  Speaker 2: She is one of the astronauts in the Challenger Explosion.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
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  Speaker 2: January twenty eighth is the anniversary of the original Challenger explosion, So.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: That actually might be an episode we'll have to do
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: as well, because I feel like that's something that's fading
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: into history and it needs to be remembered.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: It needs to be remembered because it is a failure
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: of precision and measurement and fidelity is ultimately an issue
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: of fidelity definitely important. Then a behavior based safety I
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: mean it's a behavior based safety issue one hundred percent.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Then it's ripe for discussion by us. Yes, yeah, it
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: is Daisy Day. Ah, that's so pretty.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: It's Global Community Engagement Day.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: It is International Lego Day. Love that. Yeah, don't have
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I told you? We recently made well, like we got
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I haven't played with Lego in forever, but we recently
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: got a Lego set and made some Lego and it
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: was like the I was like, I am so happy
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: right now. I just need to get more Lego in
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: my life. What set did you get? So we got
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: one of those like succulent sets where you make the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: little pots and the little Lego suckle. They're really cute.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I liked it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: For my thirtieth birthday, my parents got me the Ghostbusters
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Firehouse set, which I have like right up here somewhere.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Oh seen this, it's there? Yeah, it's right, but it's amazing.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: It's so cool, so many cool little references. So yes,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: everybody should spend time getting legos.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, like, its are great.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: It is International Reducing CO two emissions Day.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Please, They're not on track for that, Nope. Although
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: fortunately a lot of the the rest of the world
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: is doing this. So the United States is a huge
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: problem and fortunately other people are making better choices. Sure,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: it's Library shelfy Day. I think that means take pictures
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: of your shelf. Yeah, that's exactly what that means. Perfect.
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  Speaker 2: It is National Blueberry Pancake Day, the best of all pancakes.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So good. National Kazoo Day.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, It's also National Data Privacy Day.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It's National Pediatrician Day. Important folks there. Yeah.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: It is pop art Day.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Not pop tart Day, although I supposed to be part
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of a pop tart.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure Andy Warhol would have if he could have.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: It is Rubber Ducky Day, that's true. It is Data
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Privacy Week.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Apparently somehow, even though it is January. It is International
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Hot Air Balloon Week. Yeah.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Sure, I guess the southernsphere is really Yeah. Yeah, it
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: is kiss a Shark Week.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Go ahead and turn that into don't Kiss a Shark Week.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Unless you're RFK.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And that case, definitely go kissing kicks to that's right,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: ideally during feeding time. Yeah. It is National Clean out
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: your Inbox Week. Yeah yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It's also a National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Week.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Oh hey, there's a big one of those in Nevada.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: So interesting makes sense, I guess. Yeah, that actually might
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: be a topic in and of itself as well. Yeah,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a note because it's like a thing
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of interesting and it's kind of quirky
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of weird, and you wouldn't think that
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: cowboys write poetry, but apparently they do. But that is
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: where we're at, but that's not what we're actually talking about.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: We are talking about burning Man. As I said, this
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: is a part two. Last time we talked about a
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: lot of the history of burning Man, mostly the history
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: of burning Man. We described quite a bit about just
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: like what the event is and that sort of thing
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: before we dive into our part two, I of course
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: would like to let you know that if you'd like
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to support us, you can leave us a rating and review,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: like subscribe, tell a friend, join us on Patreon. I'll
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: talk more about that at the end of this discussion.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. If you're here for the
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: first time, then I hope you hear you like what
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: you hear today. If you are returning, then thank you
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: for coming back. And let's go ahead and get into it.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, let's do it.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: In the last episode, we spend a little bit time
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: talking about the history of burning Man and how it
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: started with what thirty people and now up until like twelve. Yeah, yeah,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: it was and it was a small, small, tiny man
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: that was burnt. Not small, but he was smaller ap yeah,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I mean tall for tall for a human man, small
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: for a burning man. And from the history, the original history,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: starting all the way back in nineteen eighty four.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I believe it was right eighty six, although there was
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: like some events before this that like did kind of
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: inspire and lead up to this. They weren't technically what
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: this be like. Where the first time they burned an
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: effigy of a man was nineteen eighty six.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, so we brought We brought everybody up
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  Speaker 2: to two thousand and three, the year before the two
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: of us graduated high school. And this year we saw
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: from thirty people at the beginning to thirty thousand people.
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  Speaker 2: Over thirty thousand people, and the burning man is standing
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: around eighty feet tall, so everything multiplied by.
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  Speaker 1: Tens, four hundreds, four hundreds, a thousand times more people,
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  Speaker 1: ten times taller. Man.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's more what I meant, But math is not
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: I'm a psychology podcast host, I'm not a mathematician.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, that was a very American thing for you to say, Hey.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Man, I was born in the Bible Belt, baby.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: That's right, all right, So that was two thousand and
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: three where we left last time. We're going to pick
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: up on the years here, and we're kind of just
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: doing a brief overview and actually, honestly, by the time
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: we get to like two thousand and eight, it'll just
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: be quickly touching on the different years. Then we've got
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a lot more to talk about with this event, what
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: to expect, some controversies around it, and of course things
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: like ticket prices, just like things to know about this event,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk just more about what people get out
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of going to this, I think, which will kind of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: be eliminated in this discussion as we go. But one
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: of the things I think we mentioned last time is
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: that this was it became an event that was really
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: all about self expression and freedom. There was a way
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: for people to show up and be whoever they wanted
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to be for a week, and that that was they're
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: off the grid out there. There was no phones, there
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: was no internet, there was no TV. It is just
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: at this point by two thousand and three, it is
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: basically an art festival in a way that it is not.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Calling it a festival is inaccurate. It is an art
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: event where people are dressing up in these elaborate costumes,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: they're creating these gigantic, elaborate works of art, and of
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: course they're burning a ton of things to the ground.
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  Speaker 1: When they're done, and then they clean up and get
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  Speaker 1: out of there. And the ethos they have at this
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  Speaker 1: is leave no trace. It is the like, do not
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  Speaker 1: leave any evidence that we were ever here. And they
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: were very proud to report that the standards that were
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: set for them by the Bureau of Land Management, their
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: reports indicated that they were succeeding in their mission to
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: leave no trace at burning Man, which we'll get to
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  Speaker 1: when we go to talking about some of our caveats
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and criticisms. Yeah, but that brings us up to two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and four.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So in two thousand and four, we are seeing
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  Speaker 2: huge attendants. The attendants climb to more than thirty five
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  Speaker 2: thousand people, and the original founder, Larry Harvey, writes the
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: ten Principles of Burning Man, and I think this is
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: going to be this is why we decided to separate
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  Speaker 2: this out and no part two and start here, because
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  Speaker 2: I think these principles are going to be kind of
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: a unique thing about the especially now we're talking twenty
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  Speaker 2: years beyond when these principles were written, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, twenties are definitely a really important part of
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  Speaker 1: what people want out of Burning Man, what they want
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  Speaker 1: out of their experience of going to Burning Man, what
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the expectation should be, and like what people think of
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: as Burning Man, this is like the people who love it,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: this is what they love about it. Yeah, for the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: most part, and we'll see why where the direction it
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: has gone makes it challenging for people who embrace these
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: ten principles. But this is when they were written, right.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: So the first one is radical inclusion, which means everyone
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  Speaker 2: is welcome, So I think that's I think that's an
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: interesting one. And then you've got decommodification, which means that
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: every social interaction occurs without advertising in corporate sponsorships. And
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: then also gifting, which includes the rule of basically unconditional
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: gift giving, so like people are giving gifts with no
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: expectation of return. It's just kind of like, hey, you know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: here's this gift of this, whatever it might be.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: We'll talk a lot more about that when we get
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: to the what to expect at Burning Man's section, because
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the gift giving is essentially part of this bartering system
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: that they have there that is not really bartering, like
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: there are some exchanges that take place, but the quote
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: unquote bartering is gifting without expecting anything back, but we'll
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: talk more about that when we get there. The next
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: one is radical self reliance, and this is actually a
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: really important piece. Here is the idea with this is
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: it encourages people to discover who they are and rely
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: on their inner resources. So it's a lot about personal
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: responsibility and also like depending on yourself being empowered to
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: make your own choices, your own decisions and do so freely.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And so that definitely also attracts a certain type of
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: people to this that you might not have otherwise thought
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: would be attracted to this sort of event. And I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: think it also underscores that even though this feels like
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: a very liberal left wingy type of thing that ethos
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of like radical self reliance is a liberal lefty type
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: of thing, it's actually kind of ironic that, in my
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: mind that conservativism has tried to adopt that as like
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a thing that they do, when as it's like the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: opposite of the thing that they do.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Right exactly, there's also communal effort, there's radical self expression,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: there is civic responsibility, and there is leaving no trace,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: which we kind of thought about earlier.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and those are all what they'd sound like they
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: would be. Yeah, one of the principles here is participation.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: There's this really strong ethos of no spectator. As a
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: matter of fact, they used to and that they might
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: still do this, but they used to have a large
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: banner they'd put up every year that says no spectators
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: in giant all capital letters. And the point is that
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: if you're there, you're there to join in. You're there
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: to engage. You're there to participate in the event, not
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: agle at people doing it. You're not there to erect,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: report on and present this as like a freak show
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: type activity. And I apologize for the terminology, but like
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: back in the time, that's when they would have described
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: it that way. But the principle here is participation, is
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: that you were there to participate and be in the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: event itself, right.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: And then the finally there is the last principle is immediacy,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: which is one was kind of unclear, but here's what
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: the founder wrote. They wrote, quote immediate experience is in
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: many ways the most important touchstone of value in our culture.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: around us, participation in society and contact with a natural
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: End quote sounds very mystical.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Well, I sort of take this to mean I think
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: a little bit like present moment awareness is a little
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: bit what I get out of this. It's like being
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: present and here in this the situation, and I think
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: it's also seeking out experience to have. That's sort of
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: what I got from this. I could be very wrong,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: So if people have other interpretations about that, like, please
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: write in and let us know. But that was we
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: figured it was worth just quoting the person who wrote
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: this because like, rather than put words in his mouth,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: that's what he said. Right.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: So we're gonna take a moment to go against the
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: principles of the Burning Man event, and we're gonna play
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: an ad for you.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, we are back from the anti Burning Man principle
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of decommodification and instead commodifying this podcast. Yes, those two
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: thousand and four it was a big pivotal year because
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: it had that, you know, the new benchmark of crossing
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: thirty five thousand people had the ten principles of Burning
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Man that were written. So we're now to two thousand
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and five. Shane and I are starting college, so we're
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: dating ourselves hard right now. Yep, yeah, yep. I'm about
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: to have a baby around this time. Oh cool. Yeah.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Burning Man in two thousand and five saw a few
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: hundred more attendees in the previous year, so they're still
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: up in the thirty five thousand several hundred people numbers
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: at this point. The BRC, which stands for Black Rock City.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: In the previous episode we mentioned that because there are
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: so many people in this it becomes the third just
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: city in the state of Nevada. They sort of call
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: it black Rock City because it's in the Black Rock Desert.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: This could be abbreviated as BRC. So anyway, at this point,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the BRC's temporary FAA approved airport. They'd had an airport
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: up to this point. I didn't see when it started,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: but this one they landed ninety two aircraft wow at
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: their own little created airport, and they landed all of
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: them without a single incident. And this year the Bureau
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: of Land Management the BLM, they increased their requirements for
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: low impact, now allowing for so they basically became more strict.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: They only allowed for one square foot of debris per acre,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: so like you could have no more than one square
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: foot of debris per acre leftover. That was more stringent
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: than it was before. And yet Burning Man did pass
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: their inspection after the event, accommodating that requirement. Yeah.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Now in two thousand and six, the year my daughter
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: is born, the structure of the Man is a it's
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a little smaller at only seventy two feet tall, and
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: we say smaller, but that's still pretty large structure, so big,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: it's so tall. Now, nearly forty thousand people attended the event,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: and the BLM asked the event to move about a
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: mile northeast of their normal event kind of location so
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: they could continue investigating any long term effects from the event.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: They have reported none so far, which I think is
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: pretty pretty impressive for the amount of people that are
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: showing up year after year, time and time again. That's
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: that's a pretty that's a pretty stellar outcome.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they are doing well again at Burning Man, cleaning
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: up after themselves. Yeah, we'll get to that that caveat
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a little bit later. Okay, we're at two thousand and seven.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: They had over forty seven thousand attendees. So remember just
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago we were at thirty five thousand.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Now we're at forty seven thousand. Now, this is actually
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the year that I was one of those attendees. This
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: is the one and only time that I have attended
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: this and yes i'm dating myself again, and this year
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: had an interesting event. I was there to experience this
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and arsonist burned the man on Tuesday, oh, which they
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: usually burn the man on Saturday, but some artists ran
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: in and burned it early. They were able to extinguish it,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and then they burned it again, and they actually sort
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: of treated it as this like rare event there where
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: they were like, hey, you don't get to see him
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: burn twice in one week, so that's pretty exciting. So
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I'm sure the organizers were frustrated, but people managed to
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: spin it into something positive and then yeah, their traditional
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Saturday ceremony took place as scheduled. I will say, having
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: seen this only that one time, it is quite the spectacle,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: like it really goes up in flame, you just kind
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: of watch it. Initially my experience, and I could be
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: fabricating this memory because it's been so long since I
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: was there, but my recollection is that initially, when the
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: burn goes up there's a big cheer, and then there's
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: kind of a hushed quiet after the cheer sort of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: dies down. You just kind of watch it burn for
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a while. But yeah, and then it eventually collapses and
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: people go back to their whatever they're doing. Sure, one
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of the art installations I saw there I got to
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: find a picture of. And when I saw it, I
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: was like, today, something like this every year. Apparently this
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: was unique. I did not find any evidence this had
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: happened before or since, but they had this crazy semi
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: truck art. What they did is they took a semi truck,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: balanced it essentially on its bumper. It looked like a
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: like sort of an oil tanker. Yeah, curve the oil
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: tanker part of it background on top of itself, attached
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: that to another truck, and curve that back around again.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: So the whole thing is standing like sixty feet tall,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and it's one semi balanced on the crooked tale of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: another semi sort of like in a giant letter s. Yeah,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and of course this is gonna be supported with a
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: bunch of like steel beams and everything. But it was
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: a wild thing to see, Like I was just looking
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: at it trying to wrap my head around what I
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: was even looking at Yeah for a long time.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty impressive, Like it's a cool it's a
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: cool image for sure. Like it's one of those things
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: where it's like people are capable of some really interesting things,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember just seeing as like what
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: this is wild, Like I've never seen anything like this,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Like they're real semi trucks. Now. I think they did
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: modify the sort of tanker part of it to accommodate
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the structure. Yeah, but they're real semi trucks with real
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: like axles and wheels and like the whole thing is like, yeah,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: it's it was nuts. Yeah, that's cool.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: So the population continue to grow for the most part,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: year by year, nearly fifty thousand people in two thousand
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: and eight, dropping about forty three thousand and two thousand
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: and nine, jumping to over fifty and twenty ten with
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: the man standing at over one hundred feet tall with
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: the platform. In twenty fourteen, the Burning Man structure was
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: created to be just the man again, as opposed to
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: kind of we were talking about before there was like
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: a little podium or a platform for it. Yeah, but
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: this time the man standing alone was one hundred and
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: four feet tall without a platform.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Huge. Thats so so big, yeah, so big, so like yeah,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: just for context, as you were saying, most of the
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: time the man was like eighty feet tall with a
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: twenty foot platform or something like that. Or actually most
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: of the time it was like sixty feet tall with
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: a twenty foot platform. Yeah, and that was common. So
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: in two thousand eight or twenty fourteen, with this one
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: hundred and four foot tall, no platform, just the gigantic,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: gigantic ethigy of a man. So they obviously had to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: like bring this in in parts and assemble it there.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: But this is approximately the size of a ten story building.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: That's just this giant structure. It's wild. Yeah, Okay. I
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: attendance screw again to sixty seven thousand people in twenty
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: fifteen to seventy eight thousand and twenty nineteen, So we're
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: now up to like when we thought thirty five thousand
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: was a lot. And even when you know, when I
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: went in two thousand and seven, thinking that like forty
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: seven thousand felt like a that's so many people. When
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: you're there, it's like this feels like a city. It's
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: now double that almost and you're at this seventy eight
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: thousand and twenty nineteen. Okay, then twenty twenty happened. Sure,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: they did try. In twenty twenty, they're like, we're going
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to try and make this happen. We're going to try
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and make this happen. They're pushing for it. But nearly
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: six years ago, the plague shut down the world in
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: a cataclysmic change that completely altered the course of humanity.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: It was a horrible time that I think we're still
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: living on the curse timeline from. And they tried, they
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: were going to try and hold Burning Man, but eventually
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: they did cancel the event, and instead they held some
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: virtual Burning Man event with some whopping five hundred thousand
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: people in attendance at this virtual event, which is a
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: lot of people. So that's that's what they could do
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, since resuming operations, attendance has hovered consistently around seventy
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: thousand people, and the man stood around sixty four to
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: seventy five feet tall, except for twenty twenty one, when
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: the man was only twenty three feet tall, which is
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: really interesting. They're like, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna ease
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: back into this. Here's a short man. Yeah, and now
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: just for the for twenty twenty six, tickets are going
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: to start going on sale at the time of this
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: recording next week, so on February fourth of twenty twenty six,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: so you'll start seeing those ticket sales and start seeing
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: the advertising for that soon.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: At the time this is published is like two weeks
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: out from yea, yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah, but yeah,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: for those who are interested in this thing, we've been
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: talking about for essentially the length of the burning Man event,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: because we started last week. Tickets to go on sale
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: in February fourth. So speaking of tickets, let's start tackling
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: those ticket prices. Initially, this event was free because they
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: were just burning a man at a park. But starting
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: in the late eighties, they started doing tickets on a
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: donation based system, so they're sort of like, hey, it
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: tossed us to put on this event. If you could
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: spare some money, we would like to suggest a donation
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: of like fifteen to twenty five dollars. Officially, in nineteen
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: ninety three, they started with an actual ticket price, which
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: was forty dollars per person.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Sure, now prices continue to climb and as this want
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: to happen and kept moving to it actually moved to
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: a tiered pricing schedule based on time of purchase, car
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: parking registration fees, and camp size pricing, as well as
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: quote unquote gift pricing, in which people like to pay
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: higher ticket prices to subsidize people who can't afford the
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: full price.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, and some way they can subsidize that is with ads.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: All right, we're back. They did not subsidize ticket sales
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: with ads. They've actually stuck to an ethos of keeping
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: it advertiser free to a point that'll be in the
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: caveat section we'll get to. So we're people who have
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: gone to Burning Man are hearing these prices and just
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: drooling at the mouth or frothing at the mouth, being like,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: what on earth they paid forty dollars to go to this? Yeah.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: By twenty ten, ticket prices were between two hundred and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: ten dollars to two hundred and forty dollars a person.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I feel like I recall paying something around one hundred
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and fifty to two hundred dollars the year that I went,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: which felt at the time like a crazy amount of money,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: but in retrospect was fairly paltry, but you know, things
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: are different now. This climbed all the way up to
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty dollars just five years later. So
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: by twenty fifteen you're top six hundred and fifty dollars
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: per person per ticket for the tickets. By twenty twenty
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the prices were seven hundred and seventy five dollars for
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: general admission, or by twenty twenty is obviously they were
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: canceled that year. But when we're in the current decade,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: now seven hundred and seventy five dollars for general admission,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: and then if you are one of the people who
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: receives the gift admission price at six hundred and seventy
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: five dollars, and then you still have to pay about
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty dollars per vehicle pass and then
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: ranging all the way upward of three thousand dollars for
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: premium ticket prices per person. Wow, so you're talking sort
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: of like large camp sites and all kinds of other
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: premium things you get. Okay, I was curious because I'm like,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: hold on, you have seventy thousand people going that are
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: paying at a minimum six hundred and seventy five dollars
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: per person. That math adds up pretty quickly, so I
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: did some quick calculations. So let's assume that every single
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: person who went paid the gifting price. That wouldn't work.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: They it wouldn't work. You literally couldn't have that happen.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: But let's just assume that was the case, just to
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: get a ballpark here. If we assume that seventy thousand
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: person number at six hundred and seventy five dollars a
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: person that puts their total revenue at over drum roll, please,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: forty seven million dollars. Wow. Wow, that is so much.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: That's so much for an event that does not have
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: like spit Like it's not like a festival where you
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: go and there's like musicians playing and there's big art.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: It's like it's a gathering, right, Like, so it's a
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: little bit of a different kind of experience than you
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: would expect. It's like forty seven million dollars for yeah,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: this big event, right, It's kind of cool. It's interesting.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: They do have musicians and things like that, and they
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: do have like some food and some coffee, and like
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: there's there's there's a lot but like it's wild to
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: wrap your head around that this like art event brings
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: in forty seven million dollars.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it is worth noting that the various fees
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: that they pay for permitting, infrastructure, year round, full time staff,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: and other overhead means that, like, even at that eye
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: popping amount of revenue, they're just about barely breaking even
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: most of the time and have even reported needing to
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: potentially restructure their organization to figure out how to continue
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: operating with their tight budget. So I think that's something
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: that people don't realize. It's like, yeah, it sounds like
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: that's a lot of money coming in and those ticket
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: prices are exorbiting or whatnot, But like that's the probably
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: the they've probably done some calculations and figured it out,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: like this is the bare minimum that we need to
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: be able to make this work for us to continue, right.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much. So, Like I saw that, like they
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: basically expect a baseline of forty million before they start
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: figuring out everything on top of that in terms of
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: what they're going to have to pay, right. So, like
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: now that revenue is cut down to seven million, which
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: still feels like a lot. But again, like that isn't
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: even factoring in all the other stuff they're going to
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: have to do, So it does get them pretty pretty
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: tight that they're just sort of they're watching their budget
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: very closely, I guess. Right. Okay, so we've described quite
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: a few things about Burning Me, but I think it's
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: worth getting into just in general what to expect at
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: this event. And the very first thing I'll say is
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: one thing you can expect is so so much art.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Each Burning Man event, each one of these, every year
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: has a theme. This started back in the nineties. I
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: think was the first one was maybe ninety three or
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: ninety four. They've had themes including things like the Body Metamorphosis,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the Green Man, which is the year Eye went good
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: and Evil, the Inferno, the Wheel of Time, the Floating World,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Hope and Fear, Metropolis. So you can kind of see
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: there's quite a range of things that could be. There's
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: one that was just like nebulous, Like that was the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: theme was Nebulous. Yeah, Yeah, ranges quite a bit. I
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: think they just something that's on their mind and they
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: sort of brainstorm some ideas or maybe they have suggestions,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: but they get those themes going and this does inform
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: some of the art installations and might inspire some of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the costumes, might inspire some of the art cars that
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: people bring, and some of the designs to the man
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: when they build it, because as we described in the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: last episode anymore and actually for the last couple decades,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: it's been lined with like some neon lights inside, sure,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: some kind of LEDs, things that they just it's all eliminated.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So those are some things that you'll go and there'll
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: be some kind of theme, and so you'll see a
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: lot of things that sort of fit into that theme
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: in general. Yeah.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Now it's also in a desert, and it's a desert
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: far from civilization. So the closest and I say far
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: like reasonably far like it. It's not a walk.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: We'll say, yeah, you're not walking this, Yeah, you're not
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: walking this.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: The closest town, which has less than one hundred people,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: is over fifteen miles away. It's boiling hot during the day,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: freezing cold at night. So you should plan to dress accordingly.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, so remember we're in the what to expect section here.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: One thing that you should plan for is that it
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: can be very useful to have a flashlight for getting around.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: It is not in a city. There are no built
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: in lights. There are a lot of like light structures
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: that people bring out there, but it gets very very
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: very dark, and technically you're not really bound by any
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: explicit boundary. And people do get lost in the desert,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Like they'll wander off and they won't be able to
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: find their way back, So you want to keep close
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: to the encampment and like have a buddy system. They
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: do send people out to like look for people who
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: are wandering around and lost, but they don't find them all,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: so like it just does. Something to be aware of
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: is like you can just wander outside of the city
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and not find your way back.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Right right, You should keep water in a snack on
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: you as you move about. You might notice becoming dehydrated.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: And when you've moved around so much, do you actually
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: that you have actually burned a significant amount of calories,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Like you can get especially in the heat, it's really
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: easy to get dehydrated really quick. So make sure you've
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: got snacks of waters all over you.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I actually meant to put a negation in
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: there because you might notice that's true, but you also
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: might not. You might not even realize that you're becoming
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: dehydrated and famished as you're sort of constantly engaged with things,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and so people will find that all of a sudd
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and they're like about ready to faint because they haven't
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: eaten anything in twelve hours and they've been in the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: baking sun. Right, So the seasoned burners will tell you
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: make sure you've just got like something to drink and
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: a snack on hand, and then just be making sure
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: you're taking care of yourself as you move about and
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: engage in the activities. Right. Also, alcohol does not count
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: as a drink when you're in the desert. That is
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the opposite. Yes, that's actually yeah, that will make it worse. Yes,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Like it's not that you can't drink but like half water. Yeah, yeah,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: that's what it really means. Other things to consider. This
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: is a desert that has a lot of dust, so
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: they generally recommend having goggles, sunglasses, sunscreen, and or an
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: umbrella and that can help keep the worst of the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: sun off of your skin. Just more or less, be prepared,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: have a plan for like being in the hot, blistering,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: cloudless sun under cloudless skies with a sun beating down
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: on you. Yeah, that that can be really hard. On
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: your eyes. They can be very hard on your skin.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Just plan for that, be prepared.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard living. Fair warning. They're naked people, either
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: partially or completely naked, and this is considered part of
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: the radical self expression principle. It's not as common as
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: you might think, but it's not uncommon either, so it's
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: important to be mindful.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as they go through and like do like myth
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: busting discussions with seasoned burners, they'll say like, yeah, you
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: will see naked people. Like the questions like are the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: naked people there? Yes, do you well, they are around,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: you will see them. But it's also like you couldn't
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: be there the whole time and never see any of them. Yeah,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: like it is there, but it's not. Everybody's not running
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: around naked the whole time. Matter of fact, only kind
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: of will you see it sometimes here and there. One
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: event in particular, there's often breast cancer events where they'll
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: have topless women, they're dances with naked men. When I
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: was there, they had like they were doing a whole
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: bike ride thing where for breast cancer. So it's like
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: a whole train of like topless people. Yeah, men women
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: otherwise in their bicycle caravan. Honestly, the novelty of it
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: wears off after a few hours, like the first day.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: By the end of the first day, you literally don't
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: even notice it. And the expectation really is just to
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: be mutually respectful and not gock at people. You know,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: people who are have larger bodies will maybe feel more
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: comfortable taking their shirts off or whatever in this place
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: because it's supposed to be so welcoming, and that's like
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: they would never do that otherwise. So it's just being
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: respectful of people, letting them be who they want to be,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: present how they want to present. And again, as I said,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: my experience of it was, I've never been anywhere like
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: this before. I've never experienced anything like this before, And
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the novelty of naked people pretty much gone by the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: afternoon on the first day.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, that makes sense. Now there are some amount
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: of drugs and plenty of alcohol. You can be around
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: this as much or as little as you want. Most
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: people aren't handing out drugs for free. It's not like
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: you're walking around and people just handing them out like
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: pamphlets or candy or anything like that. They want them
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: for themselves, and drugs are expensive, but you can enjoy
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: it sober. You can enjoy burning that sober if you wish.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: The art is incredible, and that's really kind of like
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the main crux of the of the event itself.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was completely sober when I was there, No alcohol,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: no cannabis, know anything. Lots of people go and they
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: stay sober the entire time. Yeah, there are people who
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: go and they do like to do a lot of drugs,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and that's fine, but like, you don't have to be
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: around it if you don't want to. Yeah, some people
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: there go there because they want to do a lot
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of that, but a lot of people go there because
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: they just enjoy the freedom of dressing up or not
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: dressing anything, or just walking around and looking at art,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: or just taking the week off to hang out with friends. Like,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: there's lots of things to do, and drugs can be
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: a part of it if you want them to be,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: But if you don't want them to be, it's very
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: easy to avoid. Right. An important thing to expect here
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: is the dust of the desert. They call this plia dust.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: It's like a finer sand, very very fine, and it
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: seems to operate on static electricity. It covers everything, I
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: mean everything that you touch, and it gets everywhere. It
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: will get in all your cracks and crevices. And I
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: know what you're thinking, but honestly, the worst place you
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: notice it is up your nose. Like so much is
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: going to get in your nose and stick to your boogers,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: and you will get pla boogers. Dust is going to
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: get on all your clothes, on all of your stuff,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: on everything. There's just ply of dust everywhere. Showers are
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: a hot commodity there, even cold showers, maybe especially cold showers.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Dust will cover your vehicle and it sticks to things
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: just seemingly permanently. And because of this, people who rent
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: cars and people who own car washes, they make a
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: killing durning Burning Man. But they will also they specifically
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: increase their prices in Reno during the Burning Men event
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: because everyone is going to need to clean themselves, and
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: they go through a ton ton ton more water and
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: ton more cleaning to rent out cars to people. So
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: people who fly in for this event might rent a car.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: And then when they if they do, and they I
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: think whether or not you're going to Burning Man, I
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: think they don't even ask anymore, because people just lie
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, they're like, if you rent a car
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: during the week of Burning Man in Reno, you will
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: pay a higher price because they're going to add like
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: one hundred dollars extra cleaning fee on it because it
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: will be so filthy and it'll takes so long to
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: clean and it is not super easy to clean, like
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: it takes a while. So, yeah, that is a thing
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: to expect. Is there is a ton of plia dust. Yeah,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: I mean that makes sense.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: You know, you would think that rental car companies would
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: like subsidize their fees with ads or something like we do.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: So we are talking about what to expect when you're
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: going to when you're expecting burning in So one of
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: the things that we talked about earlier that I think
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: is important to know is that there is a sort
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: of barter system in place, and it's actually about gifting things.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: We talked about gifts earlier as part of the ten
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: kind of like rules or guidance principles of the of
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: the principles. Yeah, now people can gift if they wish.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: If you need something, you can give something if someone
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: needs it. There's not an expectation to give or get
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: anything in return. If you are the receiver or the borrower, respectively.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: You can give a hug or heartfelt thank you, but
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: it's not about trading goods. And that being said, there
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: are things to purchase, food and coffee and limited quantities
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: and all that. So like, you can buy stuff, but
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: there is this kind of like gifting system that's in
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: place that you can kind of like give as needed
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: or request as needed.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some people will do more of like an actual exchange,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: but for the most part, the way that this was started,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the way that it has been described, what most people
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: expect is that they'll just give you something. I read
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: a story about someone who like they were out walking
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: on early morning and some guy was just making omelets
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: out of like a skillet in the trunk of his car.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: It was like, hey, you want an omelet, and they
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: just give you an omelet, and so that person's like, hey, thanks,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and they had breakfast, so it's and that person didn't
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: expect anything. It was like saying hey, thanks was a great,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: great reciprocation for them giving you an omelet. The point
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: is that people just provide things if they can and
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: want to. You're not expected to give things if you
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: don't have things. To gift or you don't want to,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: but like a lot of people will do that just
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: for the feeling of providing things for other people. They
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: like doing it. They maybe have a surplus of things. Yeah,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: it's like a sense of community. Yeah exactly, it's just
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: taking care of your community. So that's one thing to
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: expect there too. Cool all right people there well, camp intents, campers, RVs,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: sometimes in their cars. As we mentioned before, you are
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: responsible for you. There's not like an authority or a
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: management you can go complain to if you didn't bring
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: appropriate materials. You are responsible for yourself, so plan accordingly.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: It's good to do your research ahead of time and
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: know what to expect. Bring enough water for a week.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Bring face masks and goggles. Particularly in the case of
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: dust storms. You want to have something to be able
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: to block your nose and mouth and your eyes. That
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: stuff will get everywhere. Yeah, bring costumes if you wish
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: to participate. You don't have to, but you can. Ideally
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: if you can, it's good to bring a generator, something
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: to help cool yourself down, some kind of cooler fan
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: or ac a tent or something to sleep on. You
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: can potentially get by with out these things, but it's
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: a lot more dangerous, a lot less reliable. It's really
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: best if you plan on bringing the things you need
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: so that you are not depending entirely on the generosity
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: of strangers who may not have what you need. Yeah,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: So ito's just things to know, is that, Like, that's
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: how people accommodate this. There are even this is not
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: something to expect from most people, but the uber wealthy
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: have started sending people out ahead of time to have
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: them construct elaborate camp sites that are really not different
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: from like a four star hotel. Sure in many ways,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: they've got you know, TVs and internet and air conditioning
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and like soundproof walls. Like they basically make it just
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: like I'm going to ship my apartment out to this
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: place and then walk around outside to look at the art.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Sometimes right, right, that's not something to expect for yourself,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: but it is a thing that some people do. Yeah.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Sure, you are expected to clean up out yourself though,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: And obviously that expectation has been really clear because it
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: has worked for Burning Man so far. It sounds like
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: they're getting good reports about their cleanup efforts afterwards. People
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: seem to adhere to this, but like that is something
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: to expect. Is like you are expected to clean up
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: after yourself. Okay, you're going into a desert.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: So actually, bugs are not that much of an issue
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: as you might find in other places. There actually have
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: been some issues with bugs at certain times, in certain
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: weather conditions, so they're not a non issue necessarily. You
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: may need to plan to defend yourself against bugs, but
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: you're unlikely to run into a lot of mosquitoes or
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: beetles or things like that. It's not that there's zero,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: there's just not very many. But there was one year
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I think it was like they had had a ton
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: of rain, unseasonal rain, and then they ended up like
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: that triggered a whole bunch of bugs to come in,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: and so people were then swarmed with a whole bunch
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: of bugs, and that was like a huge thing. But
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: for the most part, it's not as much of an issue. Yeah,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: that makes sense.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: There are some celebrities, but you're unlikely to encounter them.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Sometimes they just stay tucked away in their camp or
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: they are four star apartments. Sometimes they are in costume.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you just don't see them in a sea of
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: seventy thousand plus bodies. I mean there's so many people
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: that it's like the likelihood of running into them is
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: is not zero, but it's not very high either.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they might not be super recognizable, probably by design. Yeah,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of celebrities do go there and do enjoy it,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: but you and you might see them. Many people who
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: go regularly have said that they've met some celebrities there.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: But you also might go and not see any of them. Sure,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: it just depends, Yeah, other things to expect. It can
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: take around four hours to drive out to the burning event.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: And that's when there is relatively little traffic. That's another
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: thing we mean by like you can't walk from this,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: I mean you could, it would take days. You're going
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: on a like a two lane highway out in the
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: middle of the desert to nowhere, and it just takes
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: a very long time to get out there. And that's
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: again if there's relatively little traffic. If there is a
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: lot of traffic. But I said, it's basically a two
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: lane road headed out there, and suddenly suddenly it becomes
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: congested with just tens of thousands of cars. It can
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: take over six hours and very slow moving traffic. So
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: and I was just getting there right we're talking about
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: like a very very long time in the car. You're
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: gonna need gas, You're gonna need food, You're gonna be exhausted,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be hot like it is. Uh, you got
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a plan for this trek? Sure?
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Absolutely so speaking of planning for this trek, getting back
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: can be even worse. With the amount of traffic bottleneck
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: at the gate. People have reported spending twelve hours driving
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: back from burning Man, which I feel like that is awful.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Like thinking about that, it's like you're covered in pli
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: a dust, you are probably sunburned or at least sun kissed,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: maybe a little bit parched, and now you're stuck in
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: a car with twelve hours. So if you are going,
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: you should make this part of your plan, which means
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: that you should have enough supplies or what that looks
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: like for that twelve hour return journey.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Something else to expect is around twenty percent of the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: population of burning Man, which comes out to around fourteen
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: thousand people. These come from countries outside of the United States,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: which like it's got a pretty strong international presence. They
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: don't always speak a particularly fluent version of English, sometimes
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: not at all, and of course that's their right, they're
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: not here to learn English or especially partake in our
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: cultures specifically, but to go to this free expression art event.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: So you will probably see some people because again like
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: one in five people is a lot, Yeah, who are
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: from other countries. Just kind of cool. Yeah, that's pretty neat.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: And speaking of diversity, there is a huge amount of
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: disability representation there too, So that's kind of a cool
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: thing to think, especially with the amount of work it
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: takes to get out there and get back, Like that's
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: that's kind of a cool thing to see.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are a surprising you might think with the
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: whole like radical self reliance that you wouldn't see that,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and you would be wrong, because, first of all, people
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: with disabilities are awesome and have already learned how to
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: take care of themselves a lot because they face more
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: adversity than most people by sheer virtue of the fact
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: that so much of the infrastructure is not designed to
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: support them very well. Anyway, a lot of people who
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: have disabilities will make it out to this event and
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: have fun, and they can if they're in some if
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: they are people use wheelchairs, for example, then they might
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: decorate their wheelchair sort of like an art car or
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: they might do other things to sort of use their
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: disability to have fun with the event, Like someone who,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: for example, uses a cane might actually do something that
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: covers their eyes and move about like where you like,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: how are they getting around? It's like someone who doesn't
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: use their eyes to get around, So it just kind
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: of looks kind of fun. Yeah, so there's all kinds
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: of ways that they participate as well, and it is
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: cool that they've got such good representation. Yeah, that's pretty great.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: All of this sounds like sunshine and more sunshine and
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: then it's some more spunshine on top of that, and
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: then maybe some rainbows if it is a little bit
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: of rain. And that's great. But there are some criticisms
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: of this event. There are people who have actually have
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: quite a few things to say about what they don't
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: like about this event, including the fact, and this is
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: kind of a joke and kind of not a joke,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: is this is supposed to be a decommoditized event, and
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: yet the commercial aspect of it is not completely absent,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: in particular ads all right, we're back. Actually they still
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: don't have advertising there. But as we mentioned, it does
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: cost a lot to have this event. So they do
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: have to keep finances in mind, and obviously ticket prices
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: are very high. So that's actually not the primary reason
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: about this, although it is a thing to consider. But
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: here are some discussions that people have had arguments against
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: and criticisms of burning man.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've talked at length about the principle of
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: leave no trace behind, right, like, so leave no trace,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: leave nothing behind, and it is practice, but only to
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: a point. Additional crew spend days particulously cleaning up debris
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: left behind by negligent campers, and ultimately the BRC is
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: left very clean, but the debris instead spills out into Reno,
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: with some city officials reporting that people dump enough garbage
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: around the Reno area to fill six thirty yard dumpsters
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: the equivalent of about four hundred trash cans, from everything
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: ranging from coolers to bicycles and even abandoned r vs.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: In fact, city officials report a regular half dozen vehicles
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: or so abandoned by burners somewhere in Reno after the event.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they just dump their trash like on the street,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: on parking lots. They just sort of on the side
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: of the road. There's an indigenous community that lives nearby
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: the Burning Man event, who've reported that the highway becomes
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: clogged with litter. So while the location of the event
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: is left pretty clean, the debris that they take with
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: them ends up spilling out all over the city and
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: it can be quite a problem. It can be very
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: expensive to clean all of that up, right, with people
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: not taking as much care of themselves and it being
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: really frustrating for locals who are then like all of
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: a sudden, there's an influx of trash everywhere, and even
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: things as gigantic as abandoned vehicles, right, which is you know,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: six of those around, you know, extra maybe doesn't feel
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: like a lot, but like that's kind of a lot,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Like they just have cars just like sitting somewhere. So
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: a thing to know. Yeah, Okay. Another important criticism here
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: is that despite the fact that where this takes place
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: in Black Rock Desert, despite being a dusty, dead seeming desert,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the plia is actually a dried up ancient lake bed,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: and it's actually filled with a complex and fragile ecosystem
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: of microinvertebrate species, and scientists estimate that a four thousand
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: acre sprawling camp has really put the ecosystem there under
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: immense strain. So it's like, although there's not necessarily a
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: lot of visible bugs, there is still life out there,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: and that life is greatly threatened by the amount of
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: people who are out there disrupting that ecosystem that they
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: live in for like a full straight week. I'm sure
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: it really does kill a lot of them and make
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: it difficult for that ecosystem to thrive. When it rains,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: that ecosystem really sort of hums into it's like a
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: reset button. It helps it hum into existence and thrive
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: and move things around. But like it does live in
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the dirt and the dry desert, so that many people
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: out there definitely is an issue for that ecosystem.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Now, environmentalists point out that people fly in
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: or drive from all over the world, which, as that
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: has an enormous carbon footprint on the event, including the
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: private airway that, as we mentioned before, clears over ninety
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: private jets or helicopters to bring in wealthy participants. So
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: just thinking about traveling in and traveling out is pretty impactful.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that event alone, like just from travel it is
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: estimated to produce one hundred thousand tons of CO two
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: in the atmosphere just that week. Again, that mostly is
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: estimated to come from the travel of people getting in,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: and that definitely increased exponentially with them opening a flight
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: area for people to land their planes and stuff.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Sure Sure Burning me In organizers have engaged in attempts
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: to improve the carbon footprint of the event. They have
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: incorporated solar panels to power the lights of the structures.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: They have moved to biodiesel fuels to decrease emissions. They
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: have implemented a waste reduction, repurposing and composting initiatives, and
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: these are admirable and definitely a move in the right direction.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: So like, that's I think important to note that there
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: are they are making attempts to kind of like you know,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: curb some of that challenge.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, and there's still like a ton of fuels consumed
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: for lights, a ton of things are still discarded to
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: trash that would otherwise be recyclable or compostable. So they're trying,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: and there's still lots to do. As we mentioned, the
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: general ethos of burning Man has always been a radical
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: experiment in democratization and socialism, in which people live freely
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: and help each other, yet with financial constraints on running
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the event. The wealthy elites have demonstrated that they can
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: even they can gentrify even this bohemian activity that takes place,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and have largely been a driving force behind some of
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: the changes that have taken place because they come and
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: offer an amount of money that organizers really can't refuse,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: and then they get privileges that no other people who
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: go to this event would get. Sure, it really breaks
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: down the whole fact that it was meant to be
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: the democratized, socialized event where people help and support each
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: other in community, and instead starts to turn back into
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: a hierarchical structure of the haves and have nots.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Yep, it's class systems slowly creeping in. Yeah, they will
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: hire the wealthy elites if you will. They will hire
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: people to set up lavish, comfortable camps with ac internet
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: and trappings and all the trappings of a comfortable home
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: lifestyle in the desert. One writer pointed out that everyone
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: at Burning Man has a voice, but the wealthy get
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: to decide what kind of society Burning Man will be
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: by commissioning their own art structures and their own campsites.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: This further seems to violate the slogan of no spectators,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: as many of these come to spectate the event more
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: than to participate in it, particularly the far right wing
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: elites who have started attending.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they started to get some like far right elites
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: who are the super wealthy who come out and they
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: want to just do whatever it is they do out there.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: As we said, like it does attract to certain people
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: when they hear things like total responsibility, like radical individual responsibility,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: and then they go out there and they pay a
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: bunch of people to do stuff for them, and they
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: think that that's being individually responsible somehow. Yeah, anyway, so
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: they've they've really driven that that's becoming a criticism against
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: what burning Man has started to turn into. As we mentioned,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: very near to burning Man as tribal lands belonging to
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Pyute indigenous people, and they report that every year they
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: have literal along the highways that they then have to
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: clean up. They are inundated with a bunch of traffic
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: and traffic jams the airplanes that fly through will violate
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: airspace restrictions they have over their lands. So that's another
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: criticism is like those people are not being respected in
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: a place that's already like they've already been pushed pretty
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: far out into an area that's difficult, and then they
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: have to deal with this now.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Right right, right now. Once the event grew to its
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: current size, it was discovered that there were some undercover
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: FBI agents who went to monitor the event. This clearly
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: violated the ethos of freedom that was established as a
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: central part of the Burning Man events early in its history.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like, people go there to be free and
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: to express themselves, and then all of a sudden, I
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: now have to worry about the person next to them
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: might be an undercover FBI agent. Like that is going
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: to make it's going to attenuate the extent to which
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: they're able to engage in the event the way that
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: they'd like to, right, So that's definitely a criticism and
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: a concern. There have been numerous sexual assault allegations from
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: people at Burning Man. It's really not clear how prevalent
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: this is, but it does happen every year, and there
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: seems to be little in the infrastructure of the event
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: to monitor or really prevent this from happening or deal
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: with it when it does so. Anymore, there are cops
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: in like law enforcement basically on standby at the event
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: at all times. That was not the case when I
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: was there, but any more, that seems to be a
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: regular thing to expect. So it's possible that like they
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: would be able to report those things or be have
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: someone be able to come to them to report them.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: But this is a thing that happens, So just a
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: thing to know and a criticism that has been leveled
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: at the event. Yeah.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Now, a number of deaths have happened at Burning Men,
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: including a homicide or including homicide, which I think is interesting,
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: but it was impossible to pin down any explicit and
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: it feels like it shouldn't be that difficult. But as
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: we were doing research, the numbers were anywhere between twenty
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: and forty people have died at Burning Man. Now, some
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: argument that in a regular city of eighty thousand people,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: about thirteen people die per week on the low end,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: which is six times greater than that of Burning Man,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: But those numbers include elderly people, car accidents, illness, and
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: other common factors.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you think like they make the case that
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, burning Man has almost eighty thousand people,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: they have maybe one or two deaths in a week.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: A regular city with eighty thousand people has maybe thirteen
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: deaths or more. The matter of fact, thirteen is the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: low end per week. I'm like, that's true. And in
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: a city you've got like elderly people, people who are sick,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: You've got a lot of traffic and car accidents, You've
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: got illness and disease. Like people who go to Burning
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Man are not people who are on death's door most
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: of the time. Sure, so I expect there to be
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: more death in the city where people like expect to
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: live and work and have like the infrastructure to manage
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: that sort of experience. Right, So anyway, I thing to
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: consider that, like, yes, it's probably going to happen, it
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: does happen, and ideally it's closer to zero than not. Yeah,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: that's fair, Okay. And the last criticism we have here
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: is that one of, if not the primary, reason that
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: people report wanting to go to Bernie Man is the freedom. Again,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: as we mentioned, it's this unrestricted self expression. It is
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the ability to just go out and be who you
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: want to be, dress how you want to dress. You
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: can be elaborate and flamboyant, or you can be naked
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: as the day you're born and all of that is embraced,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: and it is it is all present, and it is
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: a break from the daily capitalism and consuming and the
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: grind of our normal lives. However, and that's how it's
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: been for like a long time. But with the rise
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: of Instagram culture, this idea of like influencers going out there,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of influencers who now go to
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Bernie Man. They take a bunch of pictures, including with
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: people that they don't get their consent, they post them
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: the social media profiles, and then they use the posts
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: to help promote brands and products that they are sponsored by.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: And this both violates the privacy of the people who
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: in some cases may have their jobs affected by the
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: fact that there is a picture of them posted naked
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: on social media somewhere or on someone or like otherwise
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: spread around. And then those people also then use that
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: the pictures of those people to try as a cash
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: grab to sell or push products. Yeah, you know, they're
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: just trying to make money off of the fact that
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: they attended this event and then sell it as a
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: spectacle to people who didn't attend the event to make money.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: And that really violates the principle and it makes a
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: lot of people who go there for the art and
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: the experience uncomfortable and feel like they can't really be
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: They can't dress they the way they want to dress,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: they can't be naked if they want to be naked.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: They can't even be necessarily out and about if they're
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: concerned that they might show up, like it's possible for
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: some people just the fact that they're at Burning Man
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: could maybe get them in hot water with the job
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: that they have, and so like having their identity and
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: revealed that they were there could be problematic for them, right,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: And it's not going to be all people, but it's
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: just worth considering that, Like, those are people who expected
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: to go out here and have privacy during this art event,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: at least in the sense that their attendance didn't need
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: to be publicized, and that's been violated by someone who
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: didn't get the permission to violate that in any way, right,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and who's like not even there in the spirit of
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: the event to begin with. So it's I can see
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of criticism against that. And again I think
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: that the organizers are aware of this as an issue,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: but I don't think that they can rightly discriminate and say, like,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're an influencer, you can't be here.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Part of the principles is radical inclusion. Everyone is welcome,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: but unfortunately there are bad apples, and the bad apples
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: make their way to burning in Yep, you're absolutely right.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, there are some more things to say
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: about some of the experiences that people have had. Just
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: speculating a little bit on why people do this. I
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: think we've more or less talked about why people do this,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: but I guess, you know, we'll say a little bit
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: more about that they don't go for the ads though.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: That's certainly that's certainly true.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: All right, we're back. That was probably the last ad
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: break we'll take. So there's a couple of fun stories
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: I found I thought I would share. This was somebody
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: else sharing a story they heard from someone else, So
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: this is like third hand account to this point. But
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: it was from some girl who was out at this
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: She decided to wander out onto the plaia and after
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: walking alone in the dark, she came upon what looked
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: like a porta potty and she opens it and inside
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: is what a guy's inside, and he says, welcome to
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: the world's smallest bar, and he's got a little tiny
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: bar set up on some alcohol in like a single stool,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: and so she stayed inside and order a shot of
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: whiskey and then left. And this is just like way
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: outside of the camp. It's like a weird thing that happens.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: I don't think I would fit in the world's smallest bar.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: I think it'd be too tall. Possibly, yeah, it may
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: have been very narrow, but tall, I don't know. Hard
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: to say. Another story, these people were, they were out
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: with their They're right around. Their water bottles were empty.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they were doing, but they I
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: think they were on bicycles. They described this man pedaling
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: up to him with a little car attached to his bike,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: and he asked if they wanted grilled cheese, and so
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: they said yes, and he opened his car and proceeded
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: to make them hot grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon, and
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: then made them ice cold Bloody Mary's. And then they
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: just came to him and he rode off. And that
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: was like just a thing that happened.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: That's so fun though, right.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: And then one more there's a story about one burner
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: who had been there multiple times, said that after a
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: week in the desert. They just met. They randomly met
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: a guy who had a fenic fox, which is one
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: of those little tiny foxes with the gigantic ears and
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: like a super narrow face. They almost they almost looked
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: like an anime creature. Ye. Yeah, he had a fedic
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: fox and a pouch around his neck. And the burner said,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: this was more amazing than any amount of fire shooting,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: art or nudity.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: I think that's part of like the appeal of it, right,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: It's like you just don't know what you're going to
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: get into when you're there.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there is like a lot of novelty and random experience,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: and people bring so much creativity and unique individualism to
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: the experience that like a lot of people find there's
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: just kind of awe Yeah, and inspiration in the incredible
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: diversity in humans and human creativity and ingenuity that you
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: can find at this event.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, most definitely, that makes that makes perfect sense.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think the way we've talked about this
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: in understanding the why, as I said, we've mentioned a
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: lot of it, and I really think that one of
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: the things that come up that came up a lot
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: in people's description of this is this free expression, be
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: your true self things of that nature. And I think
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: if we were to break this down and think about
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: this from a sort of behavioral scientific lens, you can
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: think of this as them being able to engage in
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: behaviors that would otherwise be received adversely and receive adverse consequences,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: but otherwise have a lot of other natural reinforcers built
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: into them. Yeah, for sure, there are things that we
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: would that we would otherwise do that we would enjoy
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: because they have natural, often automatic reinforcement as a part
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: of them. And being able to go to this event
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: where you can like engage in those behaviors without fear
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: of any kind of punishment is something that people would
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: definitely seek out, Right. It's just like I can do
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: these behaviors I can't otherwise do. And most of them
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: are things like just wear silly outfit, right, you know, right,
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: it's wander around and bare feet in the desert, and
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: which don't do that, by the way, you will mess
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: up your feet like crazy. But wander around and like
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: look at art drive this weird structure that looks like
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: an octopus that shoots flames out of its tentacles around
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: in the desert, just go like dancing, unrestricted to music
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: that you might enjoy. Yeah, Like, there's like all kinds
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: of things that people can do that they're not engaged
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: in labor. They're not worried about their obligations or their bills.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: They might be, but you know that's not why they're there,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: and they just sort of get to have a point
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: where they can behave and do things in a way
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: that that behavior is not contacting constraint and punishment.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, absolutely, it's it's just it's an opportunity to
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: engage in lots of free operance without overt coercion in place. Yes,
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: well said for my behavior as friends, Yes exactly.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think that's what we have to say about
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: burning man. If anything else you like to add before
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: we start to wrap this one up.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: It sounds like I wouldn't like it. I don't mostly
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: because I don't like camping and I don't like being
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: a hot and I don't like being dry, and I
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: think that that way, I think I would have a
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: hard time with it. It sounds like it would be
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: a fun experience. I would be able to do it
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: for like a day or two before I'd be like
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: I think this is enough for me.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Fair enough, fair enough. It was. It was a pretty
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: radical experience. I obviously haven't been back and it's been
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: a very long time since I was there, but it
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: was it was I appreciated the uniqueness of the experience. Sure,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: I did engage in it very authentically, Like I loved
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: wandering around looking at the art. We were just in
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: a tent, yeah, and just had like a couple of
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: jugs of water, so it had take it a little
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: slow and not go too crazy. Yeah, but it was
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: pretty unique and it was interesting, and I definitely had
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: some awe inspiring moments and appreciation for the humans that
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: I got to be around and all the unique individualism
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: and awesomeness that they bring to anything. So it's pretty
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: cool to see that. Yeah, that makes sense, okay, I
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: think Besides that, if you would like to tell us
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: any stories you have from attending Burning Man, or corrections
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: or updates to any of the things that we said
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from, you can email us directly
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: at info at WWDWWD podcast dot com, and we do
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: look forward to hearing from you. You can also post
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: on the social media platform that we are on and platforms.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: We are on multiple and you can reach us there.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: You can also just email us to say things that
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: are nice. If you want to do that, we're happy
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: to receive those. But otherwise, I think that's what we
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: have to say about this topic. And we have some
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: recommendations if you're joining us for the first time. At
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: the end of each of our discussions, we just recommend
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: a thing that we that we like, or we think
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: people should check out, or just want to say something
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: nice about whatever. Sure, sometimes it's music or movies or
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: books or games or activities or things to consider, but anyway,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: it's a thing that we do and I look forward
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: to doing it. But first we read the credits. So,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: as I said, if you would like to support us,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: one way that you can do that as joining us
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: on Patreon. If you do that, you'll get ad free content,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: bonus episodes, background things, whatever. There's all kinds of school
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: goodies we have over there. But most importantly, I think
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: what people are here for is that at the end
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: of our full length discussions, I say a giant thank
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: you to the people who have supported us over there.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: So a giant thank you to Mike, m Megan, Mike
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: t Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley, Kiara, and Charlie.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: You guys are the best and we really really appreciate
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: you for all that you do.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: Seriously, y'all are just incredible.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: We also do actually have one person who supports us
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: over on our our distribution platform. We've had one person
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: there for actually over a year, So thank you to
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Naomi who also support us over on our distribution platform
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: at speaker So you can go over there if you
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: would like to join.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: That way very cool. I love that, Thank you, Niami.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: You can also support us by leaving us a rating
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: or a review wherever you listen to the podcast. Just
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: clicking five stars is great. That pushes us more into
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: the algorithm where it will suggest us to other people.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Telling people just by word of mouth is one of
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: the best ways to help us reach new audiences. That
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: is one of the most effective and efficient. That's how
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of podcasts spread, including us. And then of
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: course liking and subscribing to make sure you always get
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: episodes is important, so that helps us as well. Easy
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: things you can do if you'd like to support us.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: If not, then thanks for listening. I'm glad that you
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: enjoyed what you heard today, and as I said, you
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: can stick around for some recommendations. All that is good.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: And then thank you to my team, to people without
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: whom I cannot do this writing and fact checking from
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: Shane and myself, thank you for recording with me today. Shane, Hey,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Also, the time that we're
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: recording this, it was just Shane's birthday, so everyone with Shane,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Happy birthday.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: Hey, happy fortieth to me.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. And then the
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: person who somehow turns all this audio into a podcast
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: is justin Who is really the wizard behind the Oz?
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah that is true.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a real wizard, not a fake one like in Wizard.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Of Oz exactly. Yeah, that's true. So all right, I
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: think that's what we have to say about that. Is
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: there anything that I missed you'd like to add before
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: we do our recommendations? Uh? No, I think it covers it.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Let's recommend some things, Yay, recommendations. I am recommending a
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: table top board game. This is a it's a dice
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: and card game. This is by a publisher called all Play,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: and it is in a line of games they call
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: one minute to teach. And that's because it only takes
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: about a minute to teach you how to play this game,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: and then it only takes about ten to fifteen minutes
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: to play it. I think this is great for people
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: who aren't really into the hobby of board games, but
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: would be willing to sit down and play a game
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: even if they're not familiar with it. Yeah, I'll briefly
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: describe it. Essentially. What happens is you have some there's
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: a deck of cards that are all fish. You flip
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: over three fish, and they have a certain value that
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: you must ranging from like one to twenty or something,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: and you roll dice to accomplish that value. Now you
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: have up to seven dice that you can choose and whoever,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: and you choose them in secret, and whoever chooses the
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: fewest dice gets to go first, but of course they
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: may not roll very high. Whoever chooses the most dice
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: goes last, but they might not have fish left to
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: catch if everyone else is caught the fish first. So
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: you're trying to there's a little bit of like a
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: bidding system in terms of who's going to go. But
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: you choose your dice, you roll them if you can
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: roll the dice that match or exceed the value of
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: the fish, then you claim that fish for yourself and
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: you just keep doing that until all the fish have
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: been caught. And so that's essentially how the game works.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: It's a really simp simple, quick little game. Artwork is good,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: it's very cute, it's very accessible. I have played this
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: with two people. I've played it with four. I've played
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: it with people with disabilities who also had fun. So, like,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: it is a really easy game that's an only twenty bucks, like,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: it's not very expensive. Has a little tiny expansion you
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: can add that just adds different types of fish. There's
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: like what they call tenacious fish that you have to
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: catch twice and you can steal from other people. Yeah,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: that's really fun. But other than that, it's a really quick,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: easy little game that pretty much anyone can learn and
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: pick up and play. And it goes up to I
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: think four five players, maybe five, at least four, maybe five.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's my recommendation is Lure l u r E. Okay,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: very cool. I like that.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: I'm also gonna recommend a game, but it's a little
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: bit different than yours. So I am playing a new
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: video game called Diablo four.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: So I had friends growing up that used to play
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: Diablo quite a bit. I did not ever play because
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: that went that seems too complicated, and realizing now that
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: it absolutely was not. It was like very like very
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: like intuitive and like super easy to follow.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: And so this is the first Yablo game I've ever played,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: and it's basically just like an action RPG. You can
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: pick your character class and then fight through different dungeons
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: and forests and play is where you fight demons from
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: Hell in order to prevent the Daughter of Hatred from
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: taking over the world.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: Wow, it's graphic.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: It's because it's Diablo, so like it's blood and gore
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: and guts and all those things. Right now, I am
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: playing as a druid for those of you who listen
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: and like to play a game, I am playing as
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: a druid, and it looks just like me, except that
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: when he's angry, he turns into a bear and he
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: fights demons. So I wish I could do that. I
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: kind of look like I could do that, but I
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: can't just yet.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Is this like a dungeon crawler type of game?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. You go through and you
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: like you know, you collect like you know, you collect
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: your charms, and you're you hit a different equipment and
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: you upgrade your equipment. Right now, I've got like this
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: really cool mask that's like got bones for like a
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: grate in front of his face, and he's got like
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: elk horns on it, and he uses a bores cheer
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: and he turned to do a werewolf or a bear,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: and then he uses rocks to kill things.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: It's great. Wow, what platform is the song?
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: I'm playing it on PS five? I know, I think
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: it's on a couple other platforms, but I'm playing in
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: on PS five right now.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: Gotcha? Okay, all right, very good. So that's a little
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: card and dice game Lure or a video game Diablo four.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: That sounds like a lot of fun. I feel like
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: I would really enjoy that. And I don't have a
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: PS five, so who knows if I'll ever play it,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: but I'm glad that you have that. Yeah, it's a
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: good time. It's a good time, all right, perfect. I
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: think that is all we have to say. Go check
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: those out and then thank you all for listening. I
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: think that's it's Are we ready to wrap this up?
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: I think that covers it. All right, that's the end
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: of our Burning Man, Part two. Thanks to you all.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: This is Abraham and this is Shane. We're out, so yup.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: going to WWD WWD.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: Podcast dot com.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: day moving