70,000 people, all quarantined together in a fucking mudpit, rumor has it a highly contagious virus is spreading through the festival grounds and festival goers are walking around barefoot in the mood and are going to get all sort of nasty foot diseases. There’s food and water rationing in effect and really the only co conclusion I can get from this is that somebody is probably gonna die from this.

Like since covid I think we as a society realized but haven’t yet actually accepted is that large social gatherings are a societal danger and we shouldn’t be doing them for fun. Yes I never went out in college, my friend group consisted of my dnd group, normalize that instead of super spreader crowd crusher mass gatherings. My opinion on this is the same with guns and cars, abolition would be a good thing. Now I’m a realist, the people want their treats, sometimes a mass gathering like a protest is necessary. Can we at least all agree that there needs to be some change in the way we as a society do huge fucking events like this?

In conclusion burning man sucks, hippies aren’t communist.

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Like since covid I think we as a society realized but haven’t yet actually accepted is that large social gatherings are a societal danger

    You had me until here.

    So much of this is

    • no public health care

    • no emergency medical services

    • degraded utilities infrastructure causing a spike in sanitation problems

    • heat waves driving droughts which exacerbate all of the above

    The idea that the problem is "large social gatherings" and not "failing social services and infrastructure" seems heavily misplaced.

    Its like looking at the Superdome during Katrina and concluding the problem is pro-sports.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
      ·
      1 year ago

      The whole point of burning man is to go somewhere that has no infrastructure. If they organised the same festival in Central Park, you'd have no issues evacuating 70k people.

      It's just gotten too big and it should've never been allowed to grow past a few 100 people.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
        ·
        1 year ago

        The whole point of burning man is to go somewhere that has no infrastructure.

        The idea is to build up something from scratch in the desert and then burn it all down and return to nature.

        But what was originally a primitivist art show for regional pros - with a legacy community leadership and social expectations and some real medical and utility infrastructure - has dissolved in the face of a bunch of Silicon Valley party boys who just want a big rave in the desert.

        Even at a few hundred, they'd have the same problems as the event is currently configured.

      • Sandinband
        ·
        1 year ago

        They knew the heavy rain was coming to the desert where it couldn't be absorbed well and didn't prepare at all? Like not even the individual people going?

  • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    you're not gonna stop mass gatherings of people. COVID isn't going anywhere, we just have to live with it like we do the flu. Are we just going to cancel having fun for the rest of time? I'm not gonna hole up in my house for the rest of my life.(unless youre immunocompromised and cant get vaxxed, which that just sucks).

    Ive been to multiple music festivals this year, and ive been going to them since 2005. They actually restock soap and hand washing stations now. I've definitely seen changes in behaviors.

    Now the main issue is having the festival in a desert 60 miles from the nearest gas station. That's just fuckin stupid.

    • SaniFlush [any, any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      We shouldn’t have to live with influenza either, and we could totally drive influenza to extinction if we fucking tried.

    • ButtBidet [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      There are better vaccines and anti-viral coming out against COVID, so this is just wrong.

      • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        im confused about which part of my post youre talking about. im not saying dont get vaxxed or don't get new vaccinations.

        • ButtBidet [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          COVID isn't going anywhere

          There are sterilising vaccines and better anti vitarals on the way, so it'll definitely get better in the next two years. Also lots of us are living with vulnerable people. I'm definitely reading between the lines of what you're saying, and not talking your literal word. But please don't go to festivals, putting yourself at an infection risk, and then unmask at shops and mass transit where vulnerable people cannot avoid.

          If you're one of those rare people that parties hard like COVID is over, yet masks everywhere else, then you're a champ.

          • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            so it'll definitely get better in the next two years.

            it only gets better when vaccines are mandated, and that aint gonna happen. Flu vaccine isn't mandated either, so that's why it's still around. If the polio vaccine had been an option that would still be around too. America at this point will always have 40% of the population proudly unvaccinated. COVID will keep mutating and stay around. I do everything I can and that's all anyone can do until we start tying people down and vaccinating them forcefully.

      • NewLeaf
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        This is why I stopped going to pretty much all music festivals. The types of people that go to those large gatherings just don't get it. They use the PLUR free spiritedness as an excuse to be selfish and act like a jerk a lot of the time. Everyone is such a vulture at those things anymore.

        • ChrisLicht@lemm.ee
          ·
          1 year ago

          We used to note in the mid-‘90s that ravers who kept mentioning PLUR were the often people who created the most drama around them.

    • gabaghoul [any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      The forest service spends over $1,000,000 every summer for the rainbow gathering.

  • Vingst [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    If it was just vain contemptible people receiving harmful consequences for their own bad decisions, I'd say let them, but yeah this shit is harmful to the local environment and is an opportunity for a disease to spread and mutate, Brace's twitter prank notwithstanding.

  • Nakoichi [they/them]M
    ·
    1 year ago

    While I hate Burning Man, that shit about a virus is actually just bullshit fabricated by internet trolls.