I went on Lift The Veil’s Solutions Show again, talking about #QAnon, Citizen Activism, Crypto, Trump and other topics with Titus Frost, Last American Vagabond, and Leigh Stewy.

Thanks to Michael Tosner for sharing this new documentary.

“The Fires Of Burning Man” (c) 2018
A music-driven documentary about the culture of Fire Performers and the wider Burning Man community. Primarily shot in 2015 and focused on the journey of a Vancouver BC based fire troupe “MythMaker”; it explores the ritual, cathartic, spiritual, and just plain fun nature of fire, and watching things burn. Additional footage used from 2014, 2016, & 2017. This footage may not be used for any commercial purpose.
Find out more about the artists who generously gifted their time and talents to this project:
burningman.org/culture/history/art-history/archive/
presentdayprod.com
mythmaker.ca/mythmaker_homepage.htm
laurenturkmusic.com/
kaialtair.com/
humanexperiencecreations.com/
suzkamusic.com/
reverbnation.com/musician/kevinpariso
kidsavant.bandcamp.com/
soundcloud.com/davidkiss

It’s that time of year again.

Burning Man 2016 Annual Report

Burning Man 2016 IRS Form 990

Burners.Me Previous Financial Coverage: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015

Some highlights:

• revenues up to almost $46.2 million, up from $36.9 million in 2015.
• Revenue less Expenses= $9,242,666
• Donations received over $8 million (including Fly Ranch mega-donors).
• salaries up $2 million
• Cash and receivables: $9.5 million
• Total assets: $24.4 million
• Ticketing $873,795

Even though it is more than a year and a quarter since Burning Man 2016, they still aren’t able to share with us the actual data in their annual report. A lot of it they just took from 2015.

I can’t make the fancy graphics like them, but I can look on their form and see what “Grants Provided” and “Donations Received” were for 2016, the year this report is supposed to be about.

Grants Provided 2016: $1,518,490
Donations Received 2016:  $8,074,456

Note that for the last couple of years at least, “grants” has included all the cost of the Man, base, and the various structures that now surround the Man base. Donations went up nearly $7 million, total revenue went up about $10 million, while grants went up less than a hundred grand.

The image above makes it look like 5% of the budget goes to Burners Without Borders, and Fly Ranch takes up about 10% of their year-round time and money. Neither of these figures matches the actual numbers.

We commented last year that it seemed a little pathetic that Burners Without Borders, an organization that once held so much promise, donated a mere $4000 across 8 projects. They’ve managed to cut those outrageous costs, donating now $3415, or less than 1/13,000th of Burning Man’s revenue.

We’re making the world a better place, with $3,415. They spend way more on their European Leadership Conference. I mean, shouldn’t things like that be self-funding, if not actually raising funds?

The only founders still working full time are Marian Goodell (50 hours) and Larry Harvey (40 hours). Harley Dubois must knock off work early, or maybe she takes a longer lunch break – she only puts in 36 hours per week.

The guy actually running Burning Man, Charlie Dolman, only gets paid slightly more than the many and varied PR and IT staff.

Kudos to the board members who give their time to Burning Man for free.

Legal costs remain astronomical, more than half a million dollars a year. And that’s after Board member Terry Gross gave a generous (for a lawyer) 20% discount on his firm’s fees – although he clawed some of that back with $20k+ in personal payments.

The Artumnal fundraiser appears to have made a loss. They paid $31,904 rent for the use of The Regency Ballroom for an evening.

Burner money paid for a lot of international junkets speaking engagements, including Marian Goodell sharing the stage with the Vatican…which kind of makes sense given the sort of thing we’ve seen from this Satan-praising Pope

This guy is in charge of culture for the Vatican.

Paul Tighe (born 12 February 1958) is an Irish prelate of the Catholic Church. He has been the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture since his appointment on 28 October 2017. He is the highest-ranking Irishman in the Roman Curia

[Source]

In her talk, Maid Marian says “cellphones don’t work” and “the Internet is left behind”. Isn’t it a cardinal sin to lie in front of a bishop?

They still seem to have no idea what they are going to do with FlySalen. It’s coming up on 2 years now since they bought it. Is there some secret stuff going on out there, which isn’t being shared with the Burner community? Radical Rituals of some sort?

The biggest individual contributions to Fly Ranch were: $1,750,000 , $1,500,000, $999,965, $500,000. Some big backers there – can we match the name with the money? Elon? Sergey? Guy from Cirque do Soleil? Geomagician Ping Fu got a board seat, so presumably she wrote a pretty big check. Which one of these high rolling Billionaire Burners stiffed them on the $35 wire transfer fee?

They received $171,000 in land and $489,915 in marketable securities – that “donate us your stock options program” looks to have been a lucrative move.

One name that stood out to me on the Donors list was Amanda Sackler. You may have read about her family in Esquire Secretive Family Making Billions From The Opioid Crisis , the New Yorker Family That Built an Empire of Pain or my favorite from Dr Mercola Meet The Sacklers – The Family That’s Killing Millions (Maybe More Than Stalin)

…more than 200,000 killed so far this century, but hey, at least we got a donation.

Congratulations to Marian and team for delivering an excellent financial result. Costs trimmed, sales up. A well oiled and greased machine. How much trickled out into grants, which of course mostly went to the same old same old (shout out to newcomer Plug-n-Play LLC?)

“In 2016, $78,250 was awarded to 17 global projects.”

Image: Jason Henry, New York Times

The New York Times has a fascinating article about the new breed of SF tech millionaires, one of whom wears a lucky charm bracelet given to him as part of his Burning Man camp, and a magical necklace increased his wealth six times since somebody gifted it to him (on the Playa, perhaps?)

About eight people live in the Crypto Castle on any given night, and some of Mr. Gardner’s tenants brought out snacks (Cheez-Its and a jar of Nutella). One of the bedrooms has a stripper pole. Mr. Gardner leaned back into the sofa and rested his feet on the table. He recently did an I.C.O. for a start-up after-party. “You can I.C.O. anything,” he said. He runs Distributed, a 180-page magazine about cryptocurrency that comes out about once a year. He is now raising $75 million for his hedge fund, Ausum Ventures (pronounced “awesome”). He said his closest friends are moving to Puerto Rico to get around paying taxes.

“They’re going to build a modern-day Atlantis out there,” he said. “But for me, it’s too early in my career to check out.”

He wears a bracelet from his Burning Man camp (Mayan Warrior) and a necklace that is a key on a chain. “I was given this necklace and was told my net worth would go up, and it’s gone up six x since then,” he said.

He drew a chart to explain the crypto community: 20 percent for ideology, 60 percent for the tech and 100 percent for the money, he said, drawing a circle around it all.

A roommate on the sofa perked up and asked if he’d ever invest in his lucid dreams start-up (the idea is a headpiece that induces them). Mr. Gardner did not seem impressed: “Probably not,” he said. A reality show wants to follow him around, but he’s skeptical that it can add to his life.

“I literally have a date with Bella Hadid not having a reality show,” he said

[Source: New York Times]

It’s a brave new world, that’s for sure. Many Burners are embracing crypto – see our exclusive interview with Christian Weber from SHELTERCOIN who are getting support from many Burners already in their move to revolutionize the world of philanthropy with a cause-coin. Be inspired by their Fast Company story How A Burning Man Camp Project Became A Multi-Million Dollar Business to think about what blockchain might mean for you and your tribe and your impact on the world.

Burning Man is all about the freedom to be who you want and do who you want and meet who you want. These libertarian values are at the heart of the blockchain as well. It is not just about money, it is like the Internet – a new tool which is going to take humanity to the next level.

I was recently blown away by the Alpha version of GEMS, a decentralized version of Amazon’s “Mechnical Turk” business unit. There are still plenty of things that humans can do better than robots, and I believe this is a disruptive new economic model just like the Sharing Economy was. Check out my post about it on Steemit

https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@steveouttrim/gems-is-a-human-alternative-to-robotization

If you’re not on Steemit yet, run don’t walk. Some people have made $15,000 in a few hours just from a post that people liked and shared. Someone made $100,000 without even realizing it.

A world of infinite love and abundance is the ultimate realization of the Gifting and Civic Responsibility principles, not to mention Radical Self Expression and Reliance…as I explored in my latest episode of CryptoBeast (please subscribe to my new channel).

Via wikimedia.

Opinion by Terry Gotham

This article goes out directly to the party people & Burners who think they can party like rockstar gods. While the measure of any varsity party person is the ability to handle multiple types of substances concurrently, that game has become intensely more dangerous in the last 5 years. In case you missed it, the coroner’s reports on Tom Petty & Dolores O’Riordan’s deaths came back. The lead singer of The Cranberries & one of the most distinctive voices of a generation is suspected of killing herself via fentanyl poisoning. And Tom Petty’s toxicology is so startling, I’ll just quote TMZ  (yes, it’s been corroborated elsewhere put the pitchforks down) directly:

Tom’s autopsy report shows the singer was on several pain meds, including Fentanyl patches, oxycodone (Oxycontin), temazepam (Restoril), alprazolam (Xanax), citalopram (Celexa), acetyl fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl. The reason doctors prescribed the meds was because of a number of medical problems, including emphysema, knee problems and a fractured hip.
~Tom Petty Died From Massive Accidental Drug OD. TMZ.com 1.19.18

In the immortal words of Alex Shulgin, that is a “heroic” cocktail. For all my psychonauts and chem nerds out there, Kevin Shanks has an exceptional review of the chemicals here. For people out there that might not be too familiar with pharmacology, I’d like to explain why this combination of drugs is terrifying and a perfect example of the crisis currently afflicting all 50 states. While many have seen that pile of substances and flagged it as an “opiate overdose,” in a lot of toxicology reports, autopsies revealing multiple drugs are categorized in similarly incorrect ways. Some counties would flag it as a synthetic opiate overdose, while others only bucket many different types of opiates under the umbrella term “drug overdose.” Still others might even classify it as a benzo or Xanax overdose. While New York City differentiates between fentanyl and heroin in its reporting, this is not the norm. And that is a huge problem. Especially now that it’s easier than ever to be on half a dozen different drugs.

Every time someone important dies with substance-related circumstances, we watch the totality of the drug naive populace misunderstand what actually happened. The fight rages on about whether it’s a drug problem, a heroin problem, an opiate problem, an overdose problem, a public health problem, and your eyes have already glazed over, haven’t they? All of these explanations are oversimplifications. The problem is that certain drug combinations are exponentially more dangerous than others, and many dependent or recreational users are inadvertently consuming much more complex cocktails of substances than they had anticipated taking. While we don’t have the exact levels of both the substances and their metabolites, I think we’d all wager that Tom would still be alive if he didn’t take all of that stuff in a 24hr period.

via Wikimedia

In the case of Tom Petty, Prince, Lil Peep, even Michael Jackson, Fredo or Heath Ledger, this is how they ended up dead. Not by taking drugs, but by taking oxy, fentanyl, benzos, cardiotoxic SSRIs, alcohol, painkillers and/or propofol (in MJ’s case. Also Jesus fucking Christ don’t take propofol and drink). The idea of acute multi-drug driven poisoning is something that a lot of the best toxicologists have been yelling into the internet about for years now. This type of multi-substance consumption is not well understood, so it’s important that I measure my words and not run around like Chicken Little on this. But synthetic opiates like the dozens of fentanyl analogs currently in circulation are not approved for use in a prescription setting and are mostly illegal. Precursors for some of these substances have even been outlawed in China. We may not know exactly which ones are lethal, but with the news that broke Friday evening with Tom Petty’s report, and what we found out about Prince months ago, it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the tens of thousands of deaths in non-famous people that adulterated benzos, cocaine, and heroin/morphine are contributing to. Interestingly, the presence of 4-ANPP strongly implies that the fentanyl was illicitly manufactured and it may imply that he had consumed other synthetic fentanyls like furanylfentanyl beforehand, but at this time we don’t have enough data to make that call confidently.

via Wikimedia

We need to get away from this idea that certain drugs are bad in all cases and will ruin your life and kidnap your children. We need to arrive in the universe of the real where everyone takes more than one drug, in varying quantities, at differing times, for different reasons. When examining the effect of a single drug under an MRI against a control, you can at least generate some baseline data about how the drug affects blood flow or potentially neurological activity. Once that person has a cup of coffee that morning? Gotta throw the whole thing out. A lot of research hinges on modifying one variable at a time, which is at odds with the way that most people consume drugs. And as America ages, it will naturally be prescribed an increasingly complex regimen of pharmaceuticals. This requires doctors to be up on their shit, and in the case of Prince, Tom Petty, and many others, ensure their patients aren’t accidentally being given illicit fentanyl analogs with their daily routine.

One of the most important parts of this conversation is, how the hell did Tom Petty get a Schedule I fentanyl analog? In the same way that Prince’s doctor was providing him with what turned out to be illegal synthetic opiates, Tom Petty’s bloodstream had substances in it that no business being in his or anyone’s bloodstream. And I’m not even talking about the Xanax, the SSRI, the fentanyl or the Oxy. I’m talking about aceytlfentanyl. We don’t know how it interacts with citalopram, nor how much of the SSRI Tom Petty had in his bloodstream. The fentanyl could’ve been the thing that did it, but it’s also possible that the citalopram or even the Xanax was what did it. The waters in this case are so muddied I doubt we’ll ever know what really pushed Tom over the edge. There are a ton of terrible drug combinations out there, and it seems we’re inventing new ones every month.

via Fab4Collectibles.com

Am I saying all, most, or even some doctors do this? Of course not. Am I saying that there’s an illuminati lizard conspiracy to kill celebrities/Americans by overprescribing them? Also of course not. What I am saying is that more and more Americans, even ones of modest means, are getting access to an increasingly complex mixture of central nervous system depressants, while tens of thousands of Americans are being found dead after consuming multiple types of synthetic opiates, benzos and other substances that make it hard . There are so many things we can do to keep these adulterated substances out of the peoples hands. We can stop this. Stigmatizing Karen, who is in her 50s and has been using fentanyl patches as directed by her doctor, for help dealing with a slipped disk since 1999, will not solve the problem. The Beatles complained about Doctor Robert, a mysterious figure who was injecting celebrities (potentially even Jackie Kennedy) with amphetamines to provide relief from the pains of life. Every time one of these doctors overprescribes for a celebrity, there is inevitably a blowback that affects Chronic Pain patients. Let’s try hard to make sure it doesn’t happen this time. They still need help, no matter how many celebrities are served up a lethal cocktail by a doctor who is out of his depth. Take care of yourselves, and for God’s sake, don’t combine fentanyls with benzos.

How do we make the world a better place? Is it by paying $1200 for Burning Man tickets, dropping acid and partying for a week half naked on a bicycle? Isn’t going to festivals just another form of commodification?

New technology is offering new opportunities to truly attain freedom – not just financial independence, but lifestyle independence. Burning Man used to be about rejecting the Default world and embracing something new and better. Now that action has shifted to the blockchain.

(Yes, I’m never going to stop banging on about harm reduction. At least as long as Burners are still smoking ground up ecstasy pills and combining heroic levels of dumb drugs. The people at the Zendo Project continue to keep Burners at burns all over the world safe, so I’m delighted to speak to Sara Gael, who has more to do with Burning Man staying sane than most will give credit!)

Photo care of Zendo Project

Interview by Terry Gotham

1.What is Psychedelic Harm Reduction like in 2018?
For the Zendo Project Peer Support services, we will continue to attend our regular events, and also expand our training workshop program. We provide both public and private trainings both in the US and internationally. We saw the demand for these trainings grow tremendously in 2017. The purpose of these workshops is to provide individuals and organizations with helpful tools to work with challenging situations, substance-related or otherwise- when they encounter them in any environment. Our public trainings draw a diverse crowd-everything from University students to mental health workers. We have also private trainings and consultation for event producers, emergency service professionals and we are increasing the number of these trainings in 2018. At Burning Man, we still hold our largest annual public training, on the first Tuesday of the burn week. Over 300 people attended this training in 2017. We feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to now train thousands of individuals in the Zendo Project model.

2.For Burners who may only remember the Zendo from a few years ago, what new awesomeness is coming to playa this year?
In 2017 we moved to one centralized location near Center Camp and Rampart. We plan on having one location again this year, in a slightly different location but still near 6:00. We are planning on doing additional talks and workshops later in the week after the main training for people who show up later in the week who can’t attend the main workshop. We are also planning on working more directly with major theme camp organizers to help prepare their camp leads for handling situations they may come across in camp.

3. Besides regional/international Burns, has the Zendo Project had any success connecting with retail/EDM festivals?
We provide the Peer Support component of Project #OpenTalk, a non-profit initiative developed by Insomniac in collaboration with the Drug Policy Alliance, Healthy Nightlife, and MAPS, with the aim of providing drug and sexual health information and emotional support provided services under one umbrella. We have been collaborating with Project #OpenTalk since Electric Daisy Carnival in 2016 and have provided services and trainings at multiple events since then. The initiative that Insomniac is developing is unique in that it serves as a multi-disciplinary effort to combine different harm reduction services. The peer support services that we provide are just one element of the umbrella of event/festival harm reduction which is under the even bigger umbrella of drug harm reduction initiatives taking place all over the world. Our goal is to continue to collaborate with other harm reduction organizations beyond just the transformational festival setting.

Photo care of Zendo Project/MAPS.

4. For everyone out there in the trenches doing harm reduction for their friends or attendees, are there any principles that they can take from the Zendo Project and use on their own?
Our mission is comprised of two components – direct service and education. It has always been a priority to educate the public by engaging in honest and unbiased conversations about recreational drug use. We dream of a time when the collective is more prepared to work with difficult emotional and psychological experiences, whether related to psychedelic use or otherwise. The Zendo Project model is one of compassionate presence, acceptance, and creating a container for processing and transforming grief and pain, as well as celebrating life. It is a place of connection where people have the opportunity to be witnessed and held in their darkest and most vulnerable moments. All of the principles and practices that we teach are easily accessible through our website and we encourage individuals to take these practices and apply them to their unique communities and situations.

5. What is the wildest thing your teams have seen in the last year or two? Would you say the volume of Burners you serve is going up or down as the years go on?
I’d say that the wildest thing we have seen is harm reduction being more accepted and integrated as a theoretical framework and practice at events, and how exponentially this grows from year to year. Zendo was born at Burning Man and even prior to the Zendo Project, MAPS worked to help develop harm reduction at transformational festivals like BOOM in Portugal. Transformational festivals have really led the way as far as modelling what it looks like to incorporate services such as the Zendo Project. It is exciting to see bigger event and festival producers begin to adopt a harm reduction model. The general public knowledge of harm reduction and peer support has also expanded. We have had an increase in the past couple of years of professionals looking to

The general trend at all the events we attend is that our numbers usually increase every year. We believe that this is related to a few factors:

1. More people learning about and thus accessing our services.
2. An steady annual increase in attendance at most of the events we attend.

6. How does legalization advocacy and the work that MAPS does collide with the Zendo Project’s goals? Have there ever been big synchronicities or (conversely) conflicts due to the slightly differing goals of the different groups?
Psychedelic harm reduction, clinical research, advocacy, and education are all elements of MAPS mission which I believe are intrinsically linked and mutually supportive. MAPS is currently primarily focused on doing clinical research to help MDMA become a medicine for the treatment of PTSD while also doing advocacy work for substances like MDMA and cannabis. While MDMA and other psychedelics have therapeutic value and potential, it is important for us to simultaneously address the risks of recreational use of these substances. The Zendo Project helps accomplish this through education and direct service. We believe that providing safe environments and support for challenging psychedelic experiences is community advocacy work in action. Providing these services decreases the number of incidence of arrests, sedation and restraint, and unnecessary psychiatric hospitalizations. This in turn influences the public view and stigma surrounding psychedelics. The legal and political climate and punitive policies in place do not keep people from doing drugs. As we work toward medicalization of psychedelics and decriminalization advocacy work, we must simultaneously address the fact that millions of people are taking psychedelics in recreational environments. These individuals are at a greater risk without harm reduction initiatives.

Photo care of Zendo Project/MAPS.

7. Besides donating to MAPS & the Zendo Project, how can people who love what you do help you do it?

• Continue to learn about harm reduction and peer counseling.
• Encourage festival producers to implement harm reduction services at their events.
• Sign up for our newsletter via our website to learn about our local workshop events and attend and promote them!

8. Is there music played at the Zendo? If so, what do you play & how do you select the tunes?
We currently don’t have music playing in the Zendo but we have considered having some soft background music like chimes, singing bowls, flute, hang drum, live sound healing to help move the energy in the space. One of the challenges is that music is very personal and so we have opted out until now. Also, there is already so much music at these events that we decided to offer a place of silence, similar to an actual Zendo meditation hall. We may be shifting that up a bit in the future. For the first two years at Burning Man we were located right inside one of the bigger sound camps on playa:  Fractal Nation/Fractal Planet. The Zendo structure shape itself turned out to produce a bit of a sub-woofer effect, so that it was often louder INSIDE the Zendo then outside. That drove people crazy-volunteers and guests alike. We have had a relatively quiet few years since then and we’ve been enjoying that aspect!

9. What is the biggest barrier hampering the Zendo Project’s efforts currently, and what do you believe will be the biggest obstacle to summit in the near-term future?
Funding is still an obstacle, though becoming less so as people really start to see the importance of this work and event organizers see it as an essential service. In the beginning, it was sometimes a hard sell because we were doing something that wasn’t really being done. When people have a new idea that solves a particular problem, sometimes it is hard to see the problem until you see the power of the solution. With initiatives like the Zendo Project, if you build it they will come. Many festivals don’t realize how many of their participants are in distress except in the more extreme cases where people are violent or disturbing other attendees. Once event organizers see how busy we were and the pressure we were taking off of the other emergency service departments so they could focus on their areas of expertise-they begin to recognize that this is a real issue and that money and other resources need to go toward this type of work. Then other organizers and producers follow suit. If you are going to have a medical tent or security at your event, you should also have people who specialize in emotional and psychological support. Just because you can’t see someone’s emotional wound doesn’t mean it’s not there.

We need to move toward becoming a more compassionate society that takes these things seriously and care for one another. This work is labor intensive. In some ways, it’s like the opposite of a Western medicine get in, get out model. We have a “come, stay as long as you would like as long as you would like” model. People will spend hours getting help from a sitter in the space. This requires a lot of staff and volunteers. It also requires that we stay open 24/7. This all costs money. We are blessed to have had the support of our successful crowdfunding campaigns and the forward-thinking festivals we have worked with over the past 6 years.

10. If I could snap my fingers and make it happen, What would your dream event to host the Zendo Project for, be?
Burning Man, of course! But really, I would like the bandwidth to implement services at all the regional burns. We aren’t there yet but hope to work toward it. We helped get the Sanctuary at AfrikaBurn off the ground over the past 5 years. We are at the point where the local leads are carrying the torch and we no longer need to be there. Although I will miss going to Africa every year, this to me is one of our great accomplishments and demonstrates an effective training model.

Remember when Burning Man was all about the Maker Movement? In 2016 the theme was Da Vinci’s Workshop, and Minister of Propaganda Will Chase left to do PR for Maker Faire. This year they have returned to the latest Silicon Valley buzzwords with I, Robot.

3DToken (3DT) is an upcoming ICO in the nanotech and robotics space. Their vision is “Factory 4.0”, transforming the entire economy with Just-In-Time, made to order manufacturing near the point of sale instead of making stuff in factories in China then shipping and trucking it around the world. Their 3D printers can use environmentally friendly, recycled materials. CryptoBeast interviews Politronica and 3D Token CEO Alessandro Chiolerio.

Trailer:

Full Interview:

Quinn Michaels is a LARPer playing the #tyler ARG, part of Project MAYHEM (if you don’t know what all that means, see here). By studying satellite heat maps, he claims to have discovered a massive underground city underneath The Man, possibly with a particle collider like CERN. Presumably this DUMB is staffed by secret underground agents of The Man, who are really putting the Deep in the Deep State. It is so secret that it is even more secret than Nevada’s Area 51 Dreamland, because nobody knows about it except Quinn.

Somebody should tell Quinn that Burning Man is not at exactly the same location every year, but does have the same layout every year.

Although Quinn Michaels claims to be an informed researcher crowdsourcing the truth, he gives no credit to my work in his video titled “Burning Man Festival Deep State Op #tyler”. I expect this sort of behavior from the #clownsource team. But there is a particle collider and underground city beneath Burning Man? Really?

Is Quinn attempting to teach his Artificial Intelligence Chatbot #tyler that Burning Man is a secret underground base? Or is this actually an attempt to discredit my extremely thoroughly documented research, in particular Part 5b – Burning With The Man, by linking Burning Man with outlandish conspiracy theories that thousands of gullible people believe without questioning?  They have tried the same thing already with their opera-tive Douglas Dietrich.

Quinn himself admits he has been working with the FBI since 2015, though it is not clear in what role. COINTELPRO? I debunked some of his ridiculous claims in this Steemit Post, Short Bus Physics With Quinn and J.Go.

Yesterday I got a post-festival Shout Out from my friend @Defango

Defango has been accused – falsely, IMO – by #clownsource as being a Star Trek weapons-wielding wizard who collapsed Quinn’s lung with a homemade microwave weapon. He seems to have become Quinn’s nemesis, along with Action Dave Acton – cstruther George Webb’s brother. Yesterday I also made an appearance on Quinn’s buddy and defender Lift The Veil’s show.  So I find it hard to believe that Quinn posting a Burning Man video today is just a coincidence. But then I’m no coincidence theorist, JV might have a different opinion.

Quinn’s psyop seems to be doing a good job of distracting his audience (13k) and the @csthetruth crowd (46k) from the Nunes Memo, and literal Nunes Garbage Train Wreck that preceded it.

Image: Visalia Times-Delta

The train had a helicopter escort with overview of the track,  as most of the Republican leadership – including Mr Nunes who as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has the highest level security clearance – were headed to a hotel with an underground bunker with their families. That’s how big of a deal this memo is. So much shit hitting the fan they needed to hide in a nuclear-resistant bunker.

Instead of this very real underground facility that is relevant to today’s news, Quinn is saying “look over there!” to the combined 60,000 strong alternative media crowd that have been hoodwinked by #clownsource.

Sure seems like a modus operandi to me.

In their recent episode on Antartica, Quinn pretended his insight was his alone when in fact my fellow New Zealander The Outer Light had already done two shows about it, to his much bigger audience. Quinn got the information wrong, the data generated was from the Strava app not the Fitbit device. Is he linking the “Secret C” to the 66.6% of a circle shape of Black Rock City?

Quinn and J.Go yesterday

The Outer Light 3 days ago:

The Outer Light 2 days ago:

Yesterday the Outer Light seems to have been treading on Quinn’s turf.

More coincidences?

Please follow me on YouTube and Steemit. Join me in supporting Lift The Veil, Defango, and The Outer Light on Patreon. They do original and meaningful research. Don’t give your money or Peabody Awards to the #clownsource LARPers.

For at least the Top 14 employees, year-round salaries are well into 6 figures. CEO Marian Goodell tops the list with an overall package of $267,839 per year – $22,320 per month. This is about average for an Arts-related charity with a $40 million annual budget.

From the recently released 2016 financial report:

See our complete financial coverage here.

Brock Pierce is perhaps the most famous person in the world of cryptocurrency. He got married at Burning Man, and has much more time for Burners than civilians. He and his friends are living in a Monastery and building a permanent city in Puerto Rico called Sol: a Phoenix rising from the devastation of Hurricane Maria.

See the whole interview with Brock and Tai Lopez here.

The New York Times picked up this story:

SAN JUAN, P.R. — They call what they are building Puertopia. But then someone told them, apparently in all seriousness, that it translates to “eternal boy playground” in Latin. So they are changing the name: They will call it Sol.

Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars.

And these men — because they are almost exclusively men — have a plan for what to do with the wealth: They want to build a crypto utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society — and the Puertopians want to prove it.

For more than a year, the entrepreneurs had been searching for the best location. After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico’s infrastructure in September and the price of cryptocurrencies began to soar, they saw an opportunity and felt a sense of urgency.

So this crypto community flocked here to create its paradise. Now the investors are spending their days hunting for property where they could have their own airports and docks. They are taking over hotels and a museum in the capital’s historic section, called Old San Juan. They say they are close to getting the local government to allow them to have the first cryptocurrency bank.

Read the rest at the New York Times.

This sounds like a great use of Burner power.

Why devote a year’s worth of energy to building something that is destroyed in minutes? I mean, don’t get me wrong, that can be fun the first few times you do it. Is that all there is though, the pinnacle of Self-Expression is destruction? What about other values, Civic Responsibility, Communal Effort, Immediacy? We can take all the creative and artistic talent, brainpower, networks, and newly minted crypto capital of the Burner community and use that to do permanent good, helping others in need. Gifting things that make a lasting impact to many.

BMorg might tell you “but that’s what we do, Burners Without Borders”! Unfortunately the most recent financial data we have says that they spent less than $8000 on these projects in 2015 and 2016, years in which they took in more than $80 million.

At this point the chances of Decommodification, Inc and their ever-expanding year-round crew saving the world are pretty slim. They would have to become something they quite clearly are not. Look at Flysalen, 2 years to figure out a vision for that, hundreds of people plotting world domination in the hot tub at Esalen…still nothing.  Burners, on the other hand? We know how to get shit done. We can make the world a better place. Many of us already are, like SHELTERCOIN. Puerto Rico needs our help, there are many other disaster-devastated destinations. Why destroy stuff when you can rebuild homes and restore communities?

Or, we can just do the same hedonistic debauched thing every year in the same way, the only thing changing is ticket prices going up and lines getting longer while the quality of the crowd goes down. Eat, sleep, Burn, repeat, forever and ever and ever…

John Perry Barlow first went to Burning Man in 1994, and has been a key shaker and mover of the event ever since.

He has shared a stage with his friend Larry Harvey many times, notably in a session called The Founders Speak at Columbia University in 2013.

John Perry Barlow, left, on stage with Larry Harvey at Black Rock City

He passed away peacefully in his sleep after a long battle with illness. He died on the 22nd anniversary of his famous Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace.

He wrote 57 songs for the Grateful Dead, and founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Obituaries at Rolling Stone, EFF,  Variety, Ars Technica, Jambase

Barlow was definitely one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever met. He touched the lives of many Burners and technologists. He managed Dick Cheney’s first electoral campaign, and John F Kennedy Jr was sent to Barlow’s Bar Cross Ranch to “straighten him out”. He went from trying to blow up Harvard and hanging out at Timothy Leary’s Millbrook Acid Castle to consulting to the intelligence community.

His interview with Larry Harvey and Tech Crunch’s Mike Butcher in London kicked off my whole Shadow History research project.

A couple of his best interviews:

John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident (Wesleyan Alumni magazine)

The Legend of John Perry Barlow, Jambase (via Internet Archive)

RIP Barlow, true pioneer of the electronic frontier. You will be missed.

John Perry Barlow at Bob and Natascha Weir’s wedding, Mill Valley 1999

I spoke to Anyshare.coop founder Eric Doriean about how to get started in crypto and some of the things to look out for. We also discussed some of the potential of blockchain for new ways to living, sharing, and gifting. #communaleffort #radicalselfreliance

Subscribe to my YouTube channel

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@solarpunked/all-the-basics-to-safely-start-in-the-world-of-bitcoin-and-crypto

In the wake of long-time Burner, cyber-pioneer, Grateful Dead lyricist, Electronic Frontier Foundation founder, and cattle rancher John Perry Barlow’s recent passing, we will remember him and Timothy Leary with someone who knew both men for many years: Robert Forte. Barlow and Leary were at the epicenter of the counter-culture, and spent their careers surrounded by intelligence agents. Were they working for We The People or The Man? Or both?

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In the wake of the Santa Rosa fires, many Burners wanted to do whatever they could to help. The shelter situation was dire, with 3000 homes destroyed (5% of the total housing stock) and 100,000 people displaced.

Advanced Shelter Systems of Napa stepped up with SHELTERPODs for first responders.

Burners from Camp Epic raised $30,000 to bring their camp accommodation to Santa Rosa to create Oasis Village. 40-ft shipping containers decked out with power, lighting, insulation, and climate control. They got some land donated from a local weed medical marijuana grower, and shipped the containers out, set them up in a village ready for fire survivors to occupy.

And that’s when The Man stepped in to kill it.

Burner-Tainers

Danger Ranger brought the first shipping container to Burning Man in 1997, a military psyops unit used during the Vietnam War.

Since then, containers have become part of the fabric of Burnitecture.

ekoVillages.com upcycled art container

We contributed several containers to the Burner-founded [free|space] project in SF, earning a commendation letter from the Mayor’s Office. However we were very careful to ensure the containers were not used for residential purposes.

Thanks to Tim Lipton (pictured) for bringing this sad story to our attention

ekovillages.com up-cycled art containers at [free|space]

Temporary Autonomous Zone: Proof the Model Still Works (2013)

No Gifting for Santa

Shipping containers are heavy, expensive to move, and in many ways impractical forms of shelter. But they are solid enough to withstand windstorms, and much more comfortable for a family than sleeping in a car.

So what was the problem in Santa Rosa? They were fitted out in Nevada, not California. And they didn’t have windows. So the city said “no way”, leaving the Burners with a foul taste in their mouth, swearing to never do anything in California again – and leaving the families who’d lost their homes still sleeping in their cars. “Cars have windows”, said the building inspector.

Communal Effort and Gifting means Burners want to help others. This is why Burners Without Borders was formed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Many Burners went to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake in the same spirit.

More recently, Burners have created a cryptocurrency for disaster relief and are rebuilding Puerto Rico as a crypto-Utopia.

Unfortunately it seems that in Burning Man’s home state of California “Civic Responsibility” is a buzzkill for the other Principles.

The project was initially lauded in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and USA Today. Burners Without Borders promoted the fundraiser. Appeals to previous Burning Man supporters Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown fell on deaf ears.

Here is the full story from the SF Chronicle (hat tip to Tim Lipton from Black Rock City’s Volunteer Response Team for bringing this to our attention).

Screenshots from SF Chronicle, Feb 25 2018

Read more:

Exclusive Interview with SHELTERCOIN Founder Christian Weber

Burners Building a Crypto-Utopia in Puerto Rico

If you’ve ever wondered what I’m on about, or how this site went from a Burning Man fan site to talking about DARPA and the New World Order, then this is the CryptoBeast episode for you. I realize that most people don’t have the time or inclination to follow the 23.5 hours of video content in Shadow History of Burners or the 4.5 hours in 50 Years of Flower Power – so I tried to condense everything into just over an hour.

Everything I am talking about is backed up by references and notes which you can download here. I think it’s a fascinating tale which places the Burning Man Project in a broader historical context, and shows how their social engineering plays an important role in the world. One of the things which fascinates me about it the most is just how badly most Burners don’t want to hear it. YMMV.

I had to file a FOIA request to get Burning Man’s vendor list, even though I spoke to the BLM’s Winnemucca office some time ago and they initially told me it would be no problem to provide it. Somehow that got intercepted, just like the arrest statistic information seems to have been. Maybe #Chocotacogate caused a distraction.

Perhaps it is time to stop the charade that Black Rock City is a world where nothing is for sale except ice and coffee. I count 84 different vendors, none of whom appear to be selling those products. In addition we have BMOrg ($4o million), the Feds ($4 million), the State ($3.6 million), the Counties (hundreds of thousands)…and whatever black market activity might be going inside a Utopian pleasure city of 80,000 people…and about $100 million being added to the local economy from all the Burners hitting up the casinos, Wal-Marts, gas stations, CostCos and Whole Foods on the way.

Crime Statistics for previous years:

2016   2015   2014   2013   2012

Thanks to Anonymous Burner who sent this in on January 1st – not a day I am usually reading much email, so it slipped through the cracks. Thank you for the reminder, and thanks to One Who Wants To Know for asking if I’d run out of things to complain about – sometimes a bit of motivation helps, particularly in these dark days of Facebook shadow-banning.

Pershing County are not the biggest fans of Burning Man, as you will see from the Lovelock Review-Miner article below. A quarter of the county’s population are incarcerated in the correctional facility, including (until just recently) OJ “The Juice” Simpson.

Most of the time, Pershing County is a safe place with a low crime rate. But in August and September, their crime rate spikes to amongst the worst in the country. Burners make the whole County look bad. Burners might think “well they should be happy to have us, we are great for the economy” but this is only true for Washoe County, where Reno is.

We used to be able to read about arrests at Burning Man in the Reno Gazette-Journal, but ever since they appointed  Jenny Kane (of Chocotaco scoop fame) as their dedicated Burning Man beat reporter, stories like this seem to get hushed up.

Pershing County smashed through all previous records with a whopping 179 arrests in August and September 2017. Other than FOIA, there is no way to tell how many were for Burners, but based on the average for the remaining months of 4.9 we can safely assume it is 97%.

What sort of things were Burners getting up to? 1 forcible rape, 2 larceny (theft), 6 arson…the rest drugs – selling them, or possessing hard drugs. The Sheriff says they have confiscated guns from within Black Rock City and are concerned that the event organizers are not able to prevent guns coming in.

Looks pretty safe for stoners, you’re more likely to get a citation than an arrest. Be careful, though: even though marijuana is legal in Nevada, Burning Man takes place on Federal land – and we all know how much Attorney General Jeff “Smoke” Sessions loves weed.

The Cannabist: Can You Bring Weed To Burning Man?

Pershing County wants more money to cover the costs, which they incur longer than just for the period the gates are open. In a case of Allen vs Allen, BMorg says “$182,221 is enough” – ie, stick it where the sun don’t shine, Sheriff!

Burning Man’s spin-meisters made the argument that the legalization of weed would lead to reduced costs for the Pershing County’s Sheriffs Office. Looks like the cops responded with a record number of arrests – almost quadruple last year’s record setting 46, which was up 600% on the year before.

Once again, BMorg tries to pinch pennies from the LEOs, and the LEOs take it out on the Burners. A familiar pattern by now in this decade-long dispute.

From the Lovelock Review Monitor, story by Debra Reid (emphasis ours):

BLM requests public input on Burning Man

Thursday, December 28, 2017 1:00 AM

Pershing County residents and other concerned citizens are reminded that January 15, 2018 is the Bureau of Land Management’s deadline for public comment on the Burning Man festival.

The BLM must gather public input as it prepares an Environmental Impact Statement on the event. The EIS is required before the agency can issue another ten year Special Recreation Permit for the festival in the spring of 2019. The current SRP expires after the 2018 festival.

Black Rock City LLC, organizer of the event, is requesting that the new SRP allow expansions beyond the current maximum of 70,000 paid participants to a maximum population from 80,000 to 100,000 people on the playa, including ticket-holders, staff, contractors and volunteers.

To accommodate the larger crowd, BRC is also asking the BLM to expand the closure area. Some of the festival’s main attractions are the burning of massive structures, including a giant wooden effigy during the climax of the event. One Burning Man participant died at the 2017 event after he broke through multiple lines of security and leaped into the conflagration.

Nudity and drugs are not uncommon, making the event controversial in a conservative, rural county. Urban areas in Washoe and Lyon County benefit economically from the event while Pershing County supplies much of the law enforcement, incarceration and other services.

The 2013 Comprehensive Festival Ordinance Waiver, Law Enforcement and Settlement Agreement between BRC and Pershing County limits BRC’s costs for county services according to event attendance and integrated versus separate law enforcement command.

The ten-year agreement has become an ongoing source of contention between county law enforcement and festival officials. Even as the festival expands in 2019 and beyond, law enforcement payments to the county are restricted until the agreement expires in 2023.

Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen contends that the festival requires year-round attention and much more than eight days of county law enforcement services due to accidents and crime that occur during the weeks of set up, tear down and clean up before and after the event.

BRC officials respond that law enforcement activities outside the eight day festival are not included in the settlement agreement and are part of the normal costs of county government.

BRC has refused to pay an invoice for $39,959.20 submitted to the county by Sheriff Allen for county law enforcement costs due to activities before and after the 2016 Burning Man event. BRC General Counsel Raymond Allen argued that those expenses were covered in a total payment to the county of $243,964.92, per the settlement agreement.

“The decision to allocate $182,221.83 to the Sheriff out of the total amount that BRC paid to the County in 2016 was an exercise of the County’s sole and absolute discretion under Section 4.1 of the Agreement and was presumably based on what the Commissioners determined to be the cost of supplying ‘reasonable law enforcement services needed’ for the 2016 event,” Ray Allen stated in a letter to the county. “If the Sheriff’s Office disagreed with the Commission and decided to spend more than the amount that was allocated by the Commission, that decision had no effect whatsoever on BRC’s payment obligations under the Agreement.”

Sheriff Allen and other county law enforcement officials say they have confiscated guns inside the festival and question the ability of BRC’s gatekeepers to keep weapons out of the event.

Now that recreational marijuana is legal in Nevada, that should reduce citations issued at the event, Burning Man Political Affairs Manager Marnee Benson said in a letter to the county.

“In 2016, 62 of the 152 PCSO citations issued in connection with the Burning Man event were for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana,” Benson stated in a February 1, 2017 letter.

“That is to say, 41 percent of Pershing’s citations were issued for conduct that is now legal in Nevada. We expect this will free up a significant amount of time and budget for PCSO in 2017.” [the arrest statistics for 2017 indicate otherwise – Ed.]

In his written comments on the event submitted to the BLM, Lovelock resident David Skelton said if Burning Man expands, it will be an increasing burden on Pershing County taxpayers.

“As Burning Man provides no economic benefit to Pershing County, to the contrary, if Burning Man left Pershing County and went elsewhere, there would then be an economic benefit, due to cost reduction,” Skelton said. “There are multiple locations the event can be held on either public or private lands outside of Pershing County.”

Written comments on the Burning Man SRP should be emailed by Jan. 15, 2018 to blm_nv_burningmaneis@blm.gov or mailed to the following address:

Attention: Burning Man Event SRP EIS

BLM Winnemucca District Office, 5100 E. Winnemucca Blvd., Winnemucca, NV 89445.

Larry Harvey passed away after a stroke on 4/28/2018.

His good friend John Perry Barlow, born in the same year as him (1948), died earlier this year on the 22nd anniversary of his Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace.

According to the official account, Burning Man is in its 33rd year this year.

Rather than a eulogy, we’ve made a tribute to Larry – in his own words.

It’s an amazing thing that he and his collaborators created, that’s for sure. What will happen to the philosophy of Burning Man now, without its Chief Philosopher? Perhaps it will live on through the Ten Principles, but there was a philosophy of Burning Man long before those came out.

We support A Balanced Perspective’s suggestion that The Man this year wear a cowboy hat atop his robot head, in honor of his Creator.

Here’s some of the worldwide media coverage of Larry’s passing:

My Brother Larry: A Photo Essay by Stewart Harvey

Official Burning Man obituary by Stuart Mangrum

Reno Gazette-Journal

NPR

Variety

Hollywood Reporter

New York Times

Washington Post

Fortune

CNBC

CNN

Boing Boing

CNet

WIRED

Tech Crunch

The Guardian

The Independent

The Cut