this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
315 points (80.2% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35004 readers
516 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Social media seems to be laughing its ass off about this tragedy, is it because the folks at burning man are perceived as frivolous hippies or something? Everyone I’ve ever met who was a regular burning man attendee has been a solid human being with strong morals, personally and financially responsible, a career. Upstanding members of society for sure. I guess all some people know is the sensationalized drugs and sex. A person died. This is a tragedy for an event that brings positivity into the world. Kind of annoyed.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 191 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

It's also because Burning Man, at least in the last decade or more, just turned into another affluent, rich white people and influencer event. Whatever it was to start, it's effectively glamping now.

Sure, there are definitely some genuinely good people there, lower middle class, saved up and took their only vacation time they get all year to spend a few days there, and it sucks this happened to them. If those people end up in the hospital and the shitty insurance they get from work does fuck all to help mitigate the expenses, I'll even get angry on their behalf.

But the majority of them? They spent a lot of money, money most people don't have the luxury of getting to spend, on a pointless self-indulgent festival in the fucking desert, and this time it's come back to bite them. My sympathy is extremely limited.

They'll be miserable for a few days, get out, dry off, and go back to their easy lives. Their affairs are taken care of back home, they can miss days of work, their hospital stays will be covered, etc.

It's kind of like the Fyre Festival. Those people got fucked over hard, but those people were also not the kind I particularly pitty. Spending a lot of money on an experience only to be miserable for a few days is not a tragedy. What happened to the poor people that lived there is the tragedy.

Edit: Also just want to point out OP is trying to call this a "tragedy" when there's only been one suspected death, the cause of which is unknown as it hasn't even been confirmed yet, but the overall mood is positive, and by all accounts everything is being managed. They're trapped, not dying.

https://apnews.com/article/burning-man-festival-flooding-entrance-closed-d6cd88ee009c6e1f6d2d92739ec1ca18

[–] [email protected] 53 points 11 months ago

It’s also because Burning Man, at least in the last decade or more, just turned into another affluent, rich white people and influencer event.

I'm pretty sure it's been that way for at least 20 years...

The only people I've personally known to go to Burning Man was a rich kid in high school who went with his dad who was a marketing high-up at a very big tech company. Always came back talking about trying drugs and seeing some crazy shit, but then on Tuesday it's right back to full days of pointless meetings I guess. I've never been and I frankly don't ever care to, but that alone gave me the feeling that Burning Man is where tech suits go to play hippie for the weekend, and that always felt lame as fuck.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I went a couple of times years ago when it was just starting to turn into what you describe. Had a great time, but it quickly priced me out. Now, it sounds like an influencer-laden hellscape. The addition of premium plug and play sites was the nail in the coffin. That said, a lot of the old time Burners are fucking amazing, creative, resourceful, and helpful people.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

It's kind of like the Fyre Festival. Those people got fucked over hard, but those people were also not the kind I particularly pitty. Spending a lot of money on an experience only to be miserable for a few days is not a tragedy.

Blame sensationalist media on this one, but it's a misconception. Very few victims spent a lot of money on Fyre Festival. Most got tickets which were purported to be "all inclusive" for <$1500 USD (a pretty good deal, had it not been fraudulent). A handful of tickets sold for the $12K price which ended up in the headlines, but the standard price was a fraction of that. There's a good summary of this discrepancy here: https://youtu.be/UBPg5ftCMv8

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

One of the things I've learned over time is people can have vastly different perceptions of what being "poor" is, and I suspect that's what's happening here.

I think there are those who could not afford to put down the 1.5k you're quoting.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well yes of course, but there are lots of "poor" people who have maybe been saving up for a vacation and could make $1500 appear for an opportunity if the value seemed good enough. My family wasn't rich growing up, but we would still go on one frugal vacation a year, which probably ended up costing a similar amount. It's definitely not a demographic that I would feel "deserved" getting defrauded and left in a FEMA tent with no food and water for a weekend.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

That's not poor at all. I was one of eight kids growing up, and we never, ever, went on a vacation of any kind. It just wasn't possible at all.