> "and likely due to selection bias of healthier attendees and other confounding demographic factors"
Or perhaps it's due to that most unscientific of externalities: culture.
The burn has multiple departments that inspect and re-inspect structures and fire effects for safety. There's a DMV to ensure the art cars that rove around are safe and that people follow the speed limit. There's DPW who help build and ensure the safety of the physical site. There's a medical department that take cases ranging from dehydration to broken bones, and there's an ambulance on standby. There's also a small army of people called Rangers who rove around just checking in on everyone. How are you doing, do you need anything, etc. They find problems and help de-escalate or solve them.
Then there's the participants. Regular folk who, believe it or not, care about each other. If someone is lying on the floor unresponsible, or begging for help, or looks like they're freaking out, participants don't just step over them or ignore them. They kneel down and try to figure out how they can help. If they need water, food, a quiet space... people go and find it, and give it to this stranger in need. I've been the recipient of this help, and I've helped others. To be honest, I probably wouldn't help that much in a random city, but I do at a burn.
That's not to say there aren't dangers. I've been to regional burns that are 20x smaller that still had deaths. Someone ODs on bad drugs in the woods. Someone dives into a pond and hits their head on a rock and drowns. And old person sleeps in a soaking-wet tent on a freezing night and dies of hypothermia. Shit happens, and it sucks. But I bet you're safer at a burn than most other places, and it's not because of demographics.
0xbadcafebee · · focus · HN ↗
Or perhaps it's due to that most unscientific of externalities: culture.
The burn has multiple departments that inspect and re-inspect structures and fire effects for safety. There's a DMV to ensure the art cars that rove around are safe and that people follow the speed limit. There's DPW who help build and ensure the safety of the physical site. There's a medical department that take cases ranging from dehydration to broken bones, and there's an ambulance on standby. There's also a small army of people called Rangers who rove around just checking in on everyone. How are you doing, do you need anything, etc. They find problems and help de-escalate or solve them.
Then there's the participants. Regular folk who, believe it or not, care about each other. If someone is lying on the floor unresponsible, or begging for help, or looks like they're freaking out, participants don't just step over them or ignore them. They kneel down and try to figure out how they can help. If they need water, food, a quiet space... people go and find it, and give it to this stranger in need. I've been the recipient of this help, and I've helped others. To be honest, I probably wouldn't help that much in a random city, but I do at a burn.
That's not to say there aren't dangers. I've been to regional burns that are 20x smaller that still had deaths. Someone ODs on bad drugs in the woods. Someone dives into a pond and hits their head on a rock and drowns. And old person sleeps in a soaking-wet tent on a freezing night and dies of hypothermia. Shit happens, and it sucks. But I bet you're safer at a burn than most other places, and it's not because of demographics.