Posts Tagged alchemy
Tactical Flashlights In Combat
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Self-Defense, Technology on October 15th, 2009
In a previous post, I discussed why a tactical flashlight is a good choice for an all-around flashlight. In this post, I’ll discuss the specific use of a flashlight in combat.
The first use of a tactical flashlight in combat is simply to provide illumination. Many self-defense situations occur at night, and if you can’t see something, you can’t respond to it. This application is fairly obvious.
The second use of a tactical flashlight in combat is to blind and disorient an opponent. Tactical flashlights are designed to be powerful enough to consistently blind a person whose eyes are adjusted to darkness at the short distances where self-defense situations often occur. Depending on the specifics of the situation, the burst of light may cause the person to see spots even after the flashlight is no longer applied. This use of the flashlight has the additional advantage of being completely non-lethal. Frankly, you can’t even be charged with a crime for flashing someone in the eyes, as you might be with other less-lethal defense tools like mace or a stun gun.
Finally, tactical flashlights can be used as direct hand-to-hand weapons. When held in the fist, similar to the old “roll of pennies,” they increase the effect of punches. Although the flashlight doesn’t add much weight to the fist, even a light-weight cylindrical object increases the effect of the punch by causing the fist to be more rigid and deform less on contact. Additionally, some flashlights have what’s called a “strike bezel,” in which the bezel of the flashlight has a scalloped edge. This presents some edges to concentrate the force if a person is struck by the bezel itself.
Of the three uses, I find the second one to be the most interesting and the least obvious. At first, a flash in the eyes from a bright light might not sound like much of a combat advantage, but the effect should not be underestimated. When the flash is unexpected, it can stall an aggressor. The blinding effect further degrades the aggressor’s ability to act effectively. A flashlight, by itself, will probably not end a fight, but it can provide just enough of an advantage, just enough of a window of response to do something else, like subdue the person with hand-to-hand techniques, or make a run for it.
The real beauty of a tactical flashlight is its fundamental innocuousness. In a dark environment, nobody will even think twice about a person carrying a flashlight. You won’t draw attention from the cops like you might with some other weapon, and flashlights are legal to carry pretty much everywhere. While rangering at Alchemy this year, I regularly had my flashlight in my hand during interactions with un-ticketed people who I was ejecting from the event. I doubt that it drew much suspicion. It’s night-time! Of course you’ve got a flashlight! Because relatively few people are aware of tactical flashlights, I was probably the only one who knew that the flashlight was one defensive option if a situation turned violent.
And let’s not forget that, unlike some single-purpose defensive tools like guns, a flashlight is useful all the other 99.9% of the time when you’re not defending yourself.
Advantages of Tactical Flashlights
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Self-Defense, Technology on October 14th, 2009
A tactical flashlight is one that has been designed for combat and self-defense use. To those who are unfamiliar with the concept, this might at first sound silly. Flashlights are for light, not fighting, right? But anybody who’s fought in the dark knows that illumination is important, and more fundamentally, so does anybody who’s fumbled around in the dark for their keys. Tactical flashlights make excellent day-to-day flashlights in addition to their combat utility.
Tactical flashlights have several useful features.
They are extremely bright. In combat, this means that they can blind and disorient people and animals. In day-to-day use, this means that they’re useful at distances where an ordinary flashlight would falter. For example, at Alchemy this year, I was working the perimeter for the main burn pageant. One of the other perimeter rangers noticed a participant walk off towards the trees in such a way that he could have wandered around the side of the perimeter line. He was about 50 yards away, and it was night time, so he was difficult to pick out from the trees. My flashlight was bright enough that, even at that distance, we could easily see that he was just taking a leak. In another case, I saw at a distance of about 20 yards what looked like the silhouette of a rifle in a participant’s hand. I was sure that it wasn’t actually a rifle, but I felt obligated to investigate further. Instead of running after the participant, yelling, or otherwise exerting myself and creating a disturbance, I lit him up the lower half of his body with my flashlight. This gave me a better look at the thing in his hand and also caused him to notice me and walk my direction. As he got closer, he explained that his very-real-looking firearm was actually a BB-gun loaded with glow-in-the-dark, biodegradable BB’s. They looked awesome! Finally, the extremely bright beam of the light was usable as a headlight on a golf cart at night, where a normal flashlight might not have had enough throw to allow us to drive at a convenient speed.
They are small, especially considering the brightness of their beams. Most of them are under six inches long and weigh less than eight ounces. This makes them more convenient to hold for longer periods of time and makes it more likely that you’ll be carrying it with you when you want it.
Finally, they are extremely rugged and difficult to break. Because they are designed for combat, they are often strong enough that you could hold them in your fist and hit a person with the lens end. This means you’re unlikely to break one by dropping it.
In the interest of fairness, I should point out some down-sides of tactical flashlights. The primary one is that they are expensive. They typically run from about $150 to about $300. Hey, a 6-ounce tube that can throw a 170-lumen beam and survive being run over by a car doesn’t come cheap.
Adding to the expense are the batteries. They usually run on CR123 camera batteries, which are more expensive than regular alkalines. A typical run-time is 90 minutes, so you can spend a lot on batteries if you use your flashlight regularly. Many flashlights mitigate this factor by offering a high-intensity beam for combat and a low-intensity beam for day-to-day use. Alternatively, some of them have built-in rechargeable batteries, which saves cost, but eliminates the possibility of quickly changing out a set of dead batteries in order to continue using the light in the field. A final option might be to buy rechargeable CR123 batteries. Unfortunately, these flashlights are usually designed to maximize the light output from a pair of regular CR123s, and many of them don’t work very well with the differing voltage pattern of rechargeable CR123s.
Burning Man Ten Principles: Immediacy
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Burning Man on May 25th, 2009
Although I am an Alchemy board member at the time of this writing, these opinions are mine alone, and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of anyone else.
When Issa did a census at Alchemy in 2008, she asked people to list as many of the Ten Principles as she could. Immediacy was one of the most-commonly omitted. I think that might be because Immediacy is somewhat intangible and not as obviously-defined as, say, Radical Self-Expression or Participation. Although Immediacy might be commonly overlooked, it is probably my favorite of the Burning Man principles, and it drives nearly every decision that I make as an Alchemy board member.
My definition of Immediacy hinges on a semi-literal interpretation of the word. “Without mediation. Without anything in the middle.” Mediation occurs when someone or something stands between you and your experience. The essence of Immediacy for me is having direct experiences instead of reading about them or having someone tell you about them. It is also directly experiencing the consequences of your choices, as opposed to letting someone else feel the heat.
As an Alchemy board member, Immediacy means that, whenever possible, I get out of the way and let the participants decide how they want their burn to run. The most Immediate burn would be one that was directly managed by all of the participants, but it remains to be seen whether this type of event would have the characteristics that people are looking for when they attend a “burn.” So, in order to have a “burn” and not some other kind of event, some reduction in Immediacy is selected. A board is elected to make certain decisions by proxy, on behalf of the participants. Still, whenever possible, my goal as a board member is to preserve Immediacy by pushing as much influence and responsibility away from the board members, the team leads, and the other organizers, and onto the individual participants of the event.
What responsibilities do I think the board should have?
First, I think that the board is responsible for managing the interface between the burn and the Default World. Inside the “bubble” of the burn itself, I want individual participants to be responsible for managing their own experience, including resolving disputes and solving problems. But people outside the burn have not opted into the burn experience, and they may call on Default World methods of problem solving to resolve conflicts that originate within the burn. For example, if amplified sound from within the burn is heard by neighbors, they might call the cops to complain. The cops might then intrude on the burn and interfere with the experience that the participants are trying to have. I think that the board’s responsibility is to head off situations like this, where the Default World’s response to the burn threatens the existence of the burn itself.
Second, I think that the board is responsible for maintaining the framework of the event itself. Despite their chaotic nature, burns are not fully anarchic events. A framework exists within which the event occurs, and the nature of that framework is what makes a burn what it is and not some other kind of event. For example, in a fully anarchic event, you could throw trash on the ground and probably not expect any consequences. At a burn, the principle of Leave No Trace means that people are likely to give you some shit for it. As a board member, I try to shape the framework of the event to reflect the desires of the attendees and my own personal ideas of what a burn should be. I supported a policy of not allowing un-decorated cars within the gates once the event had begun. It was my personal philosophy that cars would serve as a constant link to the Default World, and would hinder the full immersion of the participants in the “bubble” of the burn. For a similar reason, I supported a policy prohibiting “in-and-outs” at the gate.
The second responsibility relies a lot on my personal picture of what a burn should be. Imposing my personal vision of a burn on the participants is somewhat counter to the principle of Immediacy, but I believe that the participants want some degree of this. They wouldn’t have elected board members if they didn’t want someone making some decisions on their behalf! The loss of Immediacy is balanced out by the fact that participants have the ultimate recourse of not re-electing a member whose personal vision is too far out of line with theirs, or who goes too far in imposing his or her personal philosophy.
Compensation for work at burns
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Burning Man on May 20th, 2009
At a burn, there are usually tasks that someone thinks ought to get done, but that they don’t want to or aren’t able to do themselves. Picking up MOOP (Matter Out Of Place, also known as trash) is a common one. It seems like there is always the temptation to encourage desired behavior with rewards, but I worry. In my fantasy world, the people at a burn would pick up MOOP because they believed in the principle of LNT, not because they wanted a cold drink. The person giving out the drink would do so because they wanted to express the principle of gifting, not because they wanted to get people to do something that they wouldn’t otherwise have done. Wait a minute! Burns are my fantasy world!
On some level, I feel like exchanging presents for work at a burn taints both the present and the work. I have the same uncomfortable feeling when theme camps want to give organizers cutsies in the food line, or a while back when somebody was talking about giving coffee mugs to people who volunteer. God damn it, organizing Alchemy is my vacation! I love being a board member. I love being a ranger. Thanking me for those things would be like giving me a slice of pizza and then thanking me for eating it. I just want to say, “No! Thank you for the pizza! It was delicious! Do you have any more?!” Rewarding me for eating delicious pizza that you gave me just feels weird.
Have I gotten special treatment because I help organize a burn? Sure. Last year, team leads were all given a unique piece of schwag. I don’t have a problem with people gifting to whomever they want to gift to. Where I start to feel wierd is when I hear people say, “Not enough people are volunteering to do X, so let’s set up an incentive in the form of a privilege or reward.” My ideal would be for people’s first motivation to be the love of the act, and if they get privileges or rewards as a result of that, all the better. But if people need to be incentivized, then that pretty much means that their first motivation is the incentive, and not the love of the act, and I’m not sure I want to encourage that type of interaction at my burn.
At this point, you are probably thinking, “Yeah right. Like people are going to pick up trash because they ‘love it’.” I get that. Picking up trash isn’t my favorite thing to do, but I can see how acting on the principle of LNT results in things that I do love. For example, we have gotten nothing but positive comments from the people who own and live on the land that we rent for Alchemy, and LNT is part of that. We’re leaving an impression of burners as, “Those people who put on an awesome party and clean up the land when they’re done!” That’s the kind of thing that I really love.
My philosophy is that when there is a task that people don’t want to do, the way to motivate them is to inform them of the effect of doing the task and not doing the task. If, with that information in hand, they still don’t want to do the task, then the right thing to do is to allow the task not to get done, and allow them to experience the outcome of not doing it. This allows people to be fully responsible for their own experience. If you’re going around doing things for people that you think need to get done when you’d really rather they be doing it for themselves, then you’re denying them the opportunity to take responsibility for their own experience, which isn’t doing them or you any favors.
For more on the effect of rewards and external incentives, check out Punished By Rewards
Vending at Burning Man and other burns
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Burning Man on May 1st, 2009
One of the most commonly questioned conventions of burns is the prohibition against vending or other commercial transactions. The question was recently phrased by a poster on the Burning Ring of Fire email list as:
I mean, we pay for tickets, we have to spend money to buy all the things we bring to the burn, the event has to pay for the porta-johns, so on and so forth. It seems to me that for a “cashless society” we have to spend an awful lot of money to be there…
I think that this question reveals some misunderstandings about the motivations behind the “no vending” convention. I don’t think that burns have ever claimed to be a cashless society. In my opinion, the whole “no vending” thing goes back to a few of the principles.
The description of Decommodification says, “We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.” Consumption occurs in preparation for the event, but the event itself is supposed to be as much as possible about the participatory experience. The “no vending” rule is not about cash being bad or consumption in and of itself being bad, but about discouraging the type of transaction that we practice in the Default World. Cash-based transactions are superficial and brief. They are about satisfying people’s needs as quickly and efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, one of the things that gets lost in that efficiency is the human connection between the people.
The principle of Gifting also comes into play. If cash transactions were allowed at burns, there would be more tendency for someone receiving something to want to pay for it, and for someone giving something to want to accept money for it. Setting a rule that buying and selling is not allowed makes it clear that everything given and received must be a gift. Again, this is not because buying and selling are inherently bad, but because we want the burn to be a special place with different expectations than exist in the Default World. In the Default World, we often perform undesirable tasks in order to get the money that we want to use to buy the things that we want. By discouraging monetary transactions at a burn, we encourage an environment where people only do things that they want to be doing.
Another strike against commerce is that it encourages the substitution of consumption for the act of creation. If I can buy everything I need to go to the playa, where is my motivation to make something? I find the act of creating to be more rewarding in many cases than the act of consumption. Yes, I buy playa gear too, but very often, I try to find ways to make whatever it is I’m thinking of buying instead. I’ve learned lots of useful new skills, like how to make simple metal jewelry and how to solder EL wire, as a result of this attitude.
The same poster from above went on to write:
if it’s your festival then ban anything you don’t want there. I just don’t like being told what I can’t do—To me the sacred big 10 sound alot like any other “laws” that are encountered in life. they are meant to help, but often just end up limiting freedoms and personal growth.
Alchemy is “my festival” in that I’m on its board of directors. I’m only 1/5 of the board, so please don’t take this as anything except my opinion, but…
Vending is not “banned” at Alchemy. The only things that are strictly banned are guns and pets. If you bring a booth and start selling T-shirts, I will do my best to discuss with you why I don’t think that makes for the burn experience that the community wants. If that doesn’t work, I might even stand in front of your booth and strike up a debate with anybody who looks like they’re going to buy from you, but I hope to goodness that the majority of the other attendees would frown on your choice and not participate in the commercial transaction. If It comes down to it, I might start shouting, “Seriously! No vending at burns! Fuck this guy!” But I’m not going to use any of my powers as an organizer against a person who vends, any more than I would against a person who MOOPs or who fails to uphold any of the other 10 principles. Organizers are not here to play 10-principles-police.
In my opinion, there is no vending at burns not because it is banned or prohibited, but because the people who go to burns don’t want it to be there, and so they choose not to participate in it (either buying or selling). The most important difference between the ten principles and laws is that there is no central body to enforce them. In that sense, they are more like tribal social norms than laws. The principles are an expression of the values that shaped our community. I see a link between the principles and the aspects of the community that I like, and so I try to act in accordance with the principles, so as to foster and promote those aspects of the community. If there were an aspect of the principles that I thought wasn’t working, I would reject or modify it.
If you think that vending should happen at a burn, I encourage you to start vending at a burn. Let that be your form of radical self-expression, and see how that interacts with the radical self-expression of others at the event. I’m willing to lay odds on how that will come out, but you never know… You might surprise me!
That the members of the community have a preference is not the same as having laws. If people in the community prefer no commerce at burns, and when someone brings commerce, the people in the community refuse to do business with them and shout them down and maybe even vandalize their booth… well, that’s just the community members expressing their preferences.
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