"Response to raid on White Ocean zone split with some describing it as an attempt to reclaim event from the ‘parasite class’" Parasite Class... A good description Marx would smile at of someone making 60K a year to write apis or network engineer the lip syncing of executive conference calls.
Damien Gayle @damiengayle
Monday 5 September 2016 07.02 EDT
The organisers of an exclusive camp at Nevada’s Burning Man festival have denounced “hooligans” whom they accuse of raiding their camp, stealing items, gluing trailer doors shut and cutting the power.
Pershing County sheriff’s office was called to the festival to investigate after the night-time raid targeting the White Ocean camp as it hosted its “white party”, where ravers dress in white and dance all night to techno music.
Its organisers wrote on Facebook: “Guys, I think what happened last night should be known on social media … A band of hooligans raided our camp, stole from us, pulled and sliced all of our electrical lines leaving us with no refrigeration and wasting our food and glued our trailer doors shut, vandalised most of our camping infrastructure, dumped 200 gallons of potable water flooding our camp.” Dust to dust: mourning the dead at Burning Man Read more
The response from festival regulars has been split, with sympathy towards the camp tempered by many who say that the “prank” on White Ocean, a closed zone funded by tech entrepreneurs, was “taking burning man back from the parasite class”.
In recent years, Burning Man has transformed from an anarcho-hippie fire ritual in San Francisco into a pricey end-of-summer romp in the Nevada desert for 65,000 people. But with growth has come controversy around the impact of big money.
Participants at the three-decade old festival, which is based on an ethos of co-creation and mutual self-reliance, traditionally all pitch in to build the event. It is built around a radical “gifting” culture, where even strangers who wander into a camp are supposed to be served; in turn, they are expected to do the same for others.
But as Burning Man has become more popular, it has become seen as an annual fixture for global elites who pay others to build them exclusive camps called “plug and plays”, which allow them to swoop in, turn on and drop out for a few days before returning to corporate life.
More @Guardian UK: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/sep/05/luxury-camp-at-burning-man-f...