homo igneus, the burning man

"A gift to culture" the boy in the third vid said. You have a way of displaying America in the most positive light, Boston.
NEVADA, a good place for a nuclear test. The same freaks that bleat about AGW build, then burn, enough energy to provide housing for a village. What an embarrassment. These same people do "Burning Basket" on MY beach here and leave their eye-sore laying around for others to clean. http://www.mavismullerart.com/burningbasket.html

[Boston]

this show is a one week event and there is a two week clean up after
they even remove the ash

the organizers ( I know a bunch of them ) are exclusive to this event and as far as I know only put on this one show

if someone else is putting on another event elsewere and fails to clean up
hang the bastards
cause thats not what burning man is all about

the forest service comes in and inspects the grounds
if its not clean
no permit for next year

about the carbon deal
you forget
wood is a carbon neutral fuel source as is cotton and any other processed or unprocessed plant fiber that is not older than the life span of co2 in the environment ( about 150 to 200 years )
IE
we burn "fosil" fuels and thus we have a problem
had we burned "non fossil" renewable fuels we would never have had a problem
the process of renewing metabolizes the carbon back out of the atmosphere

once again
this is a great example of Jerrie's famous quote
"you aint going to learn"
"what you dont want to know"

as I have explained the concept of carbon neutral fuels VS fossil fuels several times in other threads


the burning man event is essentially carbon neutral
all goods and services within the event are free for the cost of admission including food, water, clothing ( optional ) shelter if you need it, medical to a point, alcohol, just about anything you can imagine is free for the asking. Its a beautiful event

they even have air cannons firing pumpkins a few miles and a car toss anvil toss hell there is guaranteed someone set up to toss anything you can imagine as far as he can possibly manage
I think the car toss record is about a half mile but nothing is official that comes out of a burning man festival
no one is sober enough to measure much

dont knock it till you try it mate
cheers
B

You are making an assumption that the carbon will not stay sequestered in the wood. You are putting forth 150 to 200 years, which has been shown....oh, nevermind.
The soot, the wasted trees, the wasted human energy (the biggest thing to me). It just strikes me as curious to see people doing this, then return to their real jobs of disrupting commerce and industry on Monday (because it "pollutes").
Everybody needs a release, I 'spose. I lately get mine being hyper-critical to strangers on forums.

[CDK]

Interesting story Boston and quite on topic.

It illustrates our strange fascination. All animals run away from fire, we're the only ones attracted to it. That it destructs doesn't really seem to bother us.

[Zed]

Fire also gives life.

[Boston]

I think fire is what made humanity what it is
we sit around a camp fire and tell funny stories
a
language
b
social inclusion and a focal point for cultural interaction
c
a comon bond in numbers
d
a act of effective communicating results in a greater chance of mating with language skills being thus a genetic development as much as a physical one
e
with fire we are able to eat more types of foods as cooking certain foods makes them more easily digested

on and on and on are the benefits of fire
warmth before the advent of effective clothing for instance

having been kinda a professional student for a while I find fire an interesting subject

its kinda the binding glue of humanity
the alpha and omega if you will

once upon a time there was no more defining characteristic of man than fire
eventually there may be nothing more to define man than fire
why fire might be all we end up with is an interesting study in itself
I also once long ago did an exploratory into the technology of man

technology is not exactly moving in the most obvious direction
with many great technologies lying hidden by the past as still leave "modern" man scratching his head in wonder

largest objects moved my man
in the distant past

most complex languages and alphabets
in the distant past

written history begins with a fully developed culture
even writing itself goes back farther into the past than we can trace as the earliest forms of writing are also the most complex with subsequent forms consistently simplifying by exponential leaps and bounds

development of civilization
if you look at the sumarian libraries
you find a completely developed
legal system
language system
education system
business system
public service system
religious system
social structure
courtship and marriage system
written language ( cuneiform both linear A and B consisted of roughly 1500 and 850 characters respectively with a body of words estimated to be twice that of Greek )
the full array of governmental systems
public health systems like sewage and water even trash collection and education
every single aspect of what we consider modern civilization existed at the earliest known times of mankind's recorded history
right beside what we consider the most primitive of proto-cultures just like we still have today
social development is going no where and the duration that each civilization is surviving is declining as is many of the ancient technologies
ok we have some technologies ( electronics for instance ) that are advancing nicely but we have some that are in decline as well but culture itself
likely developed from sitting around a fire

basically culture as we know it goes back before the dawn of recorded history
and what is really spooky
it seams to be digressing

take language just as one example
the ancient languages had significantly more words than our languages today
the Greeks had for instance over 20 words for love and the Inuit more than 15 for snow
ancient Greek had proximately 21 million words in common usage
Hebrew there still trying to compile there were so many words in common usage
modern english
less than 1 million total and less than 250 thousand in common usage
point being that with every word lost is a common concept lost

today we have professions with the own special languages

stat
in the medical profession for instance

every word has a purpose
and with less words
we have diminished purpose and made understanding that much more difficult

what I found was that the greatest achievements of human culture seem to by mostly made in pre history

ok we have electronics but take away that
and guess what
we are going backwards in social development not forwards

heaviest objects moved
all in the distant past

purest metals
distant past ( look up pillar of Delphi )

development of glass
goes back to before recorded history

invention of beer
before recorded history

aluminum
which requires a knowledge of electricity to produce
the ancient Egyptians had aluminum jewelry

the metric system
sorry but if really want to be shocked read "civilization 1" cant remember who wrote it
but it definitively describes numerous ancient structures as being layed out within the one universal measurement system available to us all
metric

point being; without going into to many details, is that although we would like to think we are moving forward in our standing within technology
we are just as likely to be digressing rather than advancing

a keen eye on the past
begs the question
what represents real advancement
and what represents just clinging to what we have already known

I say things are not what you may think they are
but instead might just be what you had least expected

my conclusion after years of studying this very issue
is what I call
cultural devolution

I think one thing that is most important to realize about mans use of fire is that for many eons it was not a problem
its when we stopped burning renuable fuels and kicked in with fossil fuels that we threw the system out of balance

basically its a circle
break the circle and you break an endless chain that has enabled life to survive

understanding is a choice
although some chose to misunderstand

as I quoted before
you aint going to learn
what you dont want to know

[capt vimes]

Originally Posted by Zed

Fire also gives life.

no - it doesn't...
fire is a chemical reaction in which elements react strongly with oxygen... this reaction is massivly exotherm and agressivly chaotic - producing large amounts of heat = energy - destroying everything in its reach...
the elements are 'transformed' into oxidates(?proper english word?) making them no more longer available to life and therfore:
fire will never ever give life!

do not come now with 'after a bushfire plants are growing and blooming'...
that would be a misconception because in some areas where bushfires are somewhat regular plants have evolved strategies to come that by to a certain extent... it does not mean that it is the fire giving the life...

it is life which has 'learned' to live with regular destruction...

[Zed]

Its a natural part of the cycle down here, water kills just as effectively... why not drowning man? You sad old farts could sit about whining and doing nothing about that as well! What fun you could have...

[capt vimes]

Originally Posted by Zed

... water kills just as effectively...

granted....

why not drowning man?

because we burn things...

You sad old farts could sit about whining and doing nothing about that as well! What fun you could have...

how comes you know - or pretend to know - that i am a "sad old fart"?

regarding the natural cycle down under... been there, seen it...

[Zed]

It was "collective" numb nut.

[Boston]

actually you were closer to the mark than you might realize

there is an idea called the water ape theory that is about the only theory combining cultural and physical anthropology left standing at the end of the day.

the Savana theory went the way of the Dodo ages ago but is still the one taught in schools for some twisted reason
the Cave dweller theory also flew south with the Dodo bird long ago
as well as all the rest
but the water ape theory seems to have survived and that was the one everyone scoffed at the most

you might look it up or maybe I can find the series on it in U tube

found it