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A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man

nytimes.com

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Re: A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man

#21

Post by foldingmoney »

H8crilA wrote: post #8
kgwgk wrote: post #5

“It is not something I think about a lot, for fairly obvious reasons, but I would like to believe that, if I won a Nobel Prize, I would have enough self-control never to mention it to anyone. Not because I am not desperate for approval and prestige! Certainly, absolutely, I would want everyone I ever met to know that I had won a Nobel Prize. I just mean that it would be so much more satisfying (for me) if they found…

From my experience it is usually not so easy to tell that someone is wealthy/influential, not least because of the unusual clothing often including face masks. Except for models which may be wearing incredibly detailed and beautiful costumes that just amplify their hotness. For example - this year Ray Dalio was on Burning Man, whom I admire a lot, and I have no idea if I bumped into him or not by accident (probably n…

>Except for models which may be wearing incredibly detailed and beautiful costumes that just amplify their hotness. For example - this year Ray Dalio was on Burning Man

That reads oddly.

Re: A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man

#23

Post by rcpt »

beerdoggie wrote: post #10

Matt Levine did a hilarious piece on this earlier in the week! https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-05/goldma...

> Burning Man is mostly a weird form of charades where everyone dresses up as a hippie and tries to get you to guess what app they invented

This is great

Re: A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man

#24

Post by dang »

droithomme wrote: post #15
mopsi wrote: post #4

A comment I saw yesterday on Reddit did a good job explaining what Burning Man is: https://old.reddit.com/r/confusing_perspective/comments/d0wr...

It's a playpen for the ultra rich. It's quite similar to Epstein's Island in that regard.

If you can't or won't stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait to HN, we are going to have to ban you.

Re: A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man

#25

Post by perl4ever »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #14

What bizarre style of writing, as if Burning Man is some thoroughly alien concept and is being described as seen by the curious eyes of an awestruck anthropologist. Yes, it's believable that this professor found something of interest in the way Burning Man organizes itself but did we real need paragraphs upon paragraphs of this woo-woo style writing?

The cumulative attendance of Burning Man since 1986 is around 1 million people, so that's about the maximum number of people that could have experienced it, if nobody went more than once - but of course, people have, so the real number of unique attendees is lower.

...that means more than 99.7% of the US, and 99.99% of the world has never gone and it is thoroughly alien to them. So a bemused anthropologist seems like the appropriate POV for a general audience.

Re: A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man

#26

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

perl4ever wrote: post #25
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #14

What bizarre style of writing, as if Burning Man is some thoroughly alien concept and is being described as seen by the curious eyes of an awestruck anthropologist. Yes, it's believable that this professor found something of interest in the way Burning Man organizes itself but did we real need paragraphs upon paragraphs of this woo-woo style writing?

The cumulative attendance of Burning Man since 1986 is around 1 million people, so that's about the maximum number of people that could have experienced it, if nobody went more than once - but of course, people have, so the real number of unique attendees is lower. ...that means more than 99.7% of the US, and 99.99% of the world has never gone and it is thoroughly alien to them. So a bemused anthropologist seems like…

> 99.99% of the has never gone and it is thoroughly alien to them

Bit of a false dichotomy.

Surely there's a bunch of people who are familiar with Burning Man from photos and videos online but haven't attended personally.

Re: A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man

#27

Post by H8crilA »

foldingmoney wrote: post #21
H8crilA wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience it is usually not so easy to tell that someone is wealthy/influential, not least because of the unusual clothing often including face masks. Except for models which may be wearing incredibly detailed and beautiful costumes that just amplify their hotness. For example - this year Ray Dalio was on Burning Man, whom I admire a lot, and I have no idea if I bumped into him or not by accident (probably n…

>Except for models which may be wearing incredibly detailed and beautiful costumes that just amplify their hotness. For example - this year Ray Dalio was on Burning Man That reads oddly.

Added a paragraph. Please Take Another Look. Although it may have been better with the unintended comedic element.

Re: A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man

#29

Post by soneca »

H8crilA wrote: post #6
tim333 wrote: post #3

The idea that you should provide a basic layout and some support and then trust the market is interesting. I wonder if people will try it on a real city.

It's a little more than that. All the BM principles are there and necessary. In particular there's no typical "market", as BM runs neither on any form of money, nor on bartering, but instead on unconditional gifting.

From what I read (never been there), "unconditional" does not seem the right word. There seems to be a social rule that a camp is expected to gift. So everyone there is gifting on the condition that everyone else is gifting too.

Re: A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man

#30

Post by soneca »

hndamien wrote: post #28
hndamien wrote: post #22

There is no Economics Nobel prize.

For the down voters, it is "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel". It is distinctly not a Nobel prize. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econom...

I would assume that most of downvoters know this. They are not downvoting because they think you are factually wrong, they are downvoting because your comment was just pedantic and doesn't add anything to the conversation.
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