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RULING_OUT_RULERS

                                              September 10, 2006
                                              December   5, 2006
                                              February  14, 2007

Any definition of Burning Man
had to include a definition of
what is not Burning Man, and            BURNING_PHILOSOPHY
it's all a mess of improvised
hacks, a very impressive job
of juggling in the face of
circumstance, but never driven
by any statement of principles,
to speak of.


At present corporate sponsorship
is currently forbidden.

But one of the (very weird) hot
topics this year (2006) was
whether the BM administration          Why would anyone do this?
might consider accepting
corporate donations with the           As a loss-leader, figuring
proviso that the sponsors would        that once you've got them
get no advertising out of it --        addicted to the sugar, they'll
their name would appear nowhere.       cave-in later when you threaten
                                       to remove it.
This year a number of people
got the bright idea to try to                     No logos this year,
use Burning Man for some                          but they'd be guaranteed
"guerilla marketing"...                           within the next two years.

There was one camp apparently run by an
underwear company that was trading
people underwear, offering their
product in exchange for whatever they
happened to be wearing.

One guy standing around in the road handed me
a small widget for no apparent reason--
there's an old, and very stupid custom (that's
going out of favor) of bringing tiny, useless
"plya gifts" to offer to people, so I figured       Often "plya gifts" are
he was one of those guys.  It turned out to be      given in symbolic trade--
a carabiner key-chain with the url of a             like wampum to the injuns?
website engraved in it-- oddly enough it had
some sort of idealistic ring to the name, as
though you were supposed to think it was a
non-profit or something, but that's insane,
non-profits don't have the cash for that kind
of stupid promo item.

On one side of this thing it
said something like:

   buildabetterworld.com

And on the other side it said:

   MADE IN CHINA


In any case, these manuevers really are no-nos,
but they're also-- at present-- relatively
small, low-grade pieces of sleaziness...  it
will be interesting to see what happens if the
trend continues.

If there's a backlash, if they attempt to create
and enforce rules to fix a perceived problem,
then we can end up with interesting difficulties
like deciding whether the long-standing "Death
Guild" camp is engaging in forbidden commercial
promotion of the "Death Guild" San Francisco
night club event.

So "Death Guild" might be a difficult edge
case...  there are probably others like that.


   I heard many people complain
   about the presence of a Hare       In these circles, everyone
   Krishna camp on the esplanade.     seems to know someone who
                                      got sucked into this cult,
     The complaint                    never to return.
     usually took     
     the form:                                     They're about as welcome
                                                   as scientologists at a
       "What if this was a group of                science fiction convention.
        Christian evangelists?  Would  
        they have been given quite       
        such a prominent location?"   
                                       
    The problem that I see with this:
    what if they hadn't used the name
    "Hare Krishna" and just described
    what they're into doing?

       "We will lead sessions of group
       chanting in an attempt at achieving
       spiritual enlightenment."

         Who would have reacted:
         "Oh, they just don't
         *belong* at the Burn!"




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