Posts Tagged burning man
“Safe” vs. “Dangerous” Environments
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Burning Man on December 16th, 2009
There’s a school of thought in road design that goes something like this: designing “safe” roads and cars actually makes them more dangerous because drivers are encouraged not to pay attention. This article makes the point very eloquently.
Vanderbilt describes driving along a narrow, twisting road in Spain, where he navigated hairpin turns with few guardrails or warning signs over steep drop-offs. The result: “I drove as if my life depended on it.” But when he reached a four-lane highway with gentle curves, good visibility and little traffic, “I just about fell asleep and ran off the road … Lulled by safety, I’d acted more dangerously.”
I had an experience that reminded me of this today, while boarding the plane. I was reading a web page on my phone as I passed through the gate. I expected to enter the jetway, which is such a well-contained environment that I just kept reading. But because this was a regional shuttle jet, there was just a set of stairs down to a cordoned-off walkway. I had to stop reading and pay attention.
And of course, the whole thing made me think of Burning Man, which is the epitome of environments where you have to pay attention. “Safe” environments usually result in people to turning their attention inwards, which means that we not only fail to see our environment, we fail to see each other. This is one reason why I resist efforts to make the environment at burns safer. When the environment is known to be moderately dangerous, not only are people actually safer, they are more extroverted as well.
Drivers in traffic circles … communicate more with hand signals and eye contact. As Vanderbilt notes, when a traditional four-way intersection with lights was turned into a traffic square, “The responsibility for getting through the intersection was now up to the users, and they responded by communicating among themselves. The result was that the system was safer, even though the majority of users, polled in local surveys, felt that the system was more dangerous!”
Here are some related links:
- Popular Mechanics: Does High-Tech Higway Design Make Us Less Safe?
- Wired Magazine: Roads Gone Wild
Craigslist Founder Sums Up My Burn Philosophy
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Burning Man on August 25th, 2009
Craig Newmark, the “Craig” of Craigslist, is quoted in an interview as saying:
If most people are good and their needs are simple, all you have to do to serve them well is build a minimal infrastructure allowing them to get together and work things out for themselves. Any additional features are almost certainly superfluous and could even be damaging.
The philosophy is the same philosophy that I like to see at burns. A burn’s organizers should “build a minimal infrastructure that allows people to get together and work things out for themselves.” Perfect.
Why I cycle on the road
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Uncategorized on June 25th, 2009
I ride a bicycle sometimes: to the grocery store or the hardware store—that kind of thing. I started doing it after Burning Man, 2006, which had an ecological theme. I figured every mile I ride is another mile of petrolium I’m not burning; another mile of carbon and other pollutants I’m not putting into the air; another mile I’m not putting on my car, which will eventually be replaced, at great use of natural resources. I feel good about riding because I think I’m making a good choice for myself, for my community, and for my environment. I also like the idea that I’m getting from point A to point B using nothing but my own strength and a few simple machines.
When I ride, I usually ride on the road, which sometimes pisses off drivers who are behind me. If there’s a sidewalk, they sometimes yell, “Get on the sidewalk!” If there’s not a sidewalk, they cut to the chase with, “Get off the road!”
In Georgia, bicycles being ridden are treated legally as vehicles, just like cars. They are granted equal access to roadways and are subject to all traffic laws. Georgia state law does not require or even recommend that bicycles use sidewalks. As the Critical Mass people put it: bikes aren’t blocking traffic, they are traffic.
Drivers have argued that a slow-moving (10-20 mph) vehicle doesn’t belong on the roadway with much heavier, faster-moving vehicles like cars. Never mind that the law doesn’t agree with them. One reason I ride on the road instead o fthe sidewalk is that bicycles going 10-20 mph don’t belong on the sidewalk with pedestrians going 1-3 mph. Bicycles on the sidewalk can pose a safety hazard to pedestrians. When I ride on the street, I put myself in danger if a car hits me. When I ride on the sidewalk, I put someone else in danger if I hit them. I choose the former.
The sidewalk is not built for fast-moving vehicles. Riding a bike on a sidewalk is like driving a car down a rocky, unimproved road. There are constant bumps and jounces which are uncomfortable. Additionally, the sidewalk often curves sharply at intersections, and these curves can be difficult to negotiate at speed because they’re designed for walkers going 1-3 mph, not bicycles going 10-20 mph.
But the most compelling reason for riding in the street is that drivers don’t expect to see a vehicle going 10-20 mph on the sidewalk. Drivers are less likely to check the sidewalk when they pull out into traffic. They tend to visually check the oncoming lane, and then move on. This means that a cyclist on the sidewalk is more likely to have an accident with a driver who doesn’t see him or her and pulls out in front of him or her.
So, to sum up: No, I will not ride on the sidewalk. I understand that it’s frustrating for you to have to slow down until you can pass me. We are both entitled to use the road. If the road is not wide enough to simultaneously support all of its legal users, perhaps you can write a letter to your city council-person and see about having it widened. I’m already doing something difficult and a little scary by riding a bike on the street with you, but I like it and believe in it. Your yelling at me is not making it better for either of us.
I’ll close with a funny little anecdote.
When drivers yell, “Get on the sidewalk,” to me, I wish I could say all those things to them. I half hope I will catch up to them at a red light and be able to talk to them. It’s just so one-sided when they yell at me from their car window and just keep going. I got my chance when a man in a pickup truck made a left turn behind me. He was going slow enough that I was able to immediately hop off my bike and wave to him, meaning to say, “Come here and let me talk to you.”
Unfortunately, “Come here and let me talk to you” is apparently easily mistaken for, “You want to go?! Come on!” Especially when you’re already pissed by the fact that someone is riding a bike on your precious road. The guy leaned out his window and shouted, “I’ll kick your scrawny ass. Come on down to the end of the street and let’s go!” I figured “let me talk to you” probably wasn’t going to get me anywhere and rode on.
What is it about riding a bike on the street that makes a person so instantly violent?
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.
Homogenizing Burning Man Culture Weakens It
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Burning Man on May 4th, 2009
Mr. Jalopy once wrote:
Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate.
As if in response, Brian Shaw writes:
The way mainstream culture usually destroys a counter culture is to define it a recognizable and translatable way, copy it and then sell it. If the counter or subculture can not be easily defined in a marketable way, by the clothes members wear or the music they listen to, then it is much harder to copy, translate and sell. If you say that anyone who wants to be part of it is part of it and they can express themselves in whatever way they feel then it becomes for mainstream culture to copy and sell because you it defies definition. Heterogeneity is our shield against the status quo.
If that last statement is true, then burners have nothing to worry about. We’re about as heterogeneous as it gets. But that heterogeneity is necessarily decreased when people start selling burner fashion to others instead of leaving them to make it themselves. So you know how to make awesome faux-fur boot covers and you decide to make a few bucks selling them on Etsy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but one effect will be that the number of people wearing faux-fur boot covers that look basically exactly like yours will increase and the number of people wearing whatever-the-heck else they would have come up with on their own will decrease.
I don’t mean to give the impression that I’m totally against the buying and selling of items that express burner culture. I own a PodBelt. I bought a playa coat at Junkman’s Daughter. I just think that there is a balance to be struck, and those who are buying and selling burner culture need to be aware that they are also watering it down, reducing its true value, and potentially opening it up to appropriation by Marketing/Mainstream Culture.
Here are some links to mad skillz for defending your culture: How to solder; How to solder EL wire; How to use a MiG welder; How to use a wood router.
Your assignment: Take an item of burner clothing that you purchased and modify or enhance it in such a way that it is unique to you, thereby contributing to the heterogeneity of burner culture and strengthening it against the encroaching tendrils of Marketing/Mainstream Culture.
-
What I'm Doing Now- Oops! No Twitter!
