Burning Man

Thoughts on a lifestyle

Burning Man is fun. A lot of fun. It's also beautiful. It's beautiful in more than the classic superficial sense we usually use the word. The setup pushes participants to be the kindest, most giving, versions of themselves. And the art! Whoah. The art. A giant mechanical pegasus gallops in the sky. An intricate wooden temple, that took hundreds of people the better part of a year to design and build — it exists for a week.

It's wasteful though, even if we forgive the burnings. Tens of thousands of aweseekers fly into a remote desert, driving vehicles through alkaline dust. The dust causing irreparable harm to everything brought in. So many bring consumables, or wrap everything in tape and plastic. Most of it heading for the landfill after it's week long stint (or maybe a couple of them). Others store their supplies in shipping containers, intended to be used for one week out of the year.

The principals are great. In theory. Leave no trace. No trace on the desert, but they say nothing about the mountains of trash just outside of that protected place. Radical self reliance forces inefficiencies through the whole system. It would be so much greener with centralized electricity and water, but they want everyone to buy their own solar panels and batteries. For what? To be used once a year and rot in a container? Coal might be cleaner.

I went anyway though, twice. The events allure, to some, is hard to overstate. I live for beautiful things, and this is a peak experience for me. I went, and I'm considering going back, even while I wish the event would cease to exist.

Will I go back?

That's a harder question. Yes I know it's wasteful. I believe in its current form its a significant net negative for humanity. But selfishly — I would love to experience it again.

There's a strong tension there. I'm extremely privileged that the thousands of dollars it takes to go is not a barrier, but I do have guilt around spending so much of my time and money on such a thing while so much of the world suffers.

It's also a question of how much of my time I would want to give it, if I do choose to go. Part of the magic of the space, is just how much time and effort most of the attendees put into building that magic. For your first time there, you're not expected to create as much as consume and experience.

But when you're returning, there's a real (and valid) expectation that you give. Ideally give more than you take. I wouldn't enjoy being a leech on the experience. But I'm quite introverted, and probably (lightly) on the autism spectrum, so it feels like the energy it takes is significantly higher than some others.

On top of that, I really try my best to reduce waste, and the easiest path to taking part in Burning Man often involves the accumulation of stuff that isn’t really useful outside of the desert.

The Burner lifestyle

There are many people who've built their lives around Burning Man. Part of the culture calls the Burning Man location "home", and calling everything else "the default world" suggests what happens outside of the desert city is less important.

I made and took a small piece of art last year, and it sucked up a huge amount of my time. I can see how the bigger pieces may take literally a full year to design and build, with work starting soon after the previous years event concludes.

I see the appeal of this lifestyle, but it only further concerns me in terms of waste. Burning Man attracts privileged and well educated folk. If they're camp leads, building art pieces, or mutant vehicles, many of them would agree preparing for the event is a huge focus of their year. Focused on an event that has such a negative effect on our planet does upset me.

How could it be better?

To be clear I think the principals, and the concepts behind Burning Man are a good thing. No — a great thing. My problem with it is the scale, and the choice of location.

The regional burns achieve most of the good of the giant city with a tiny fraction of the harm. Travel is shorter, they usually aren't held in a hostile desert.

Counterpoint - Waste isn't necessarily negative

As a counter point to much of the above, I’m trying to internalize that trying to be "waste free" is a fools errand. The laws of entropy prove it impossible.

We can only reduce waste, and slow the damage to our planet. Obviously I think that's important, but sometimes I worry too much focus on that will restrict some technological advancements.

For better or worse, a lot of interesting technology has been built because of Burning Man. Tents that are better designed to withstand the wind and the dust. Portable structures, pop-up kitchens, organizational models, utopian surveys.

Lots of cool technology, that'll maybe prove useful as we change our planets climate systems. But it it a net positive? No I don't think so.