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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9859 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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I've gotten into some light twitter drama around Vibecamp, specifically whether it's appropriate to have a midnight nude pool party and a designated sex tent at an event where children are allowed, and even encouraged, to be brought by parents. Here's the full text of my tweet:

steelman of why I think kids + nudity at an event is bad:

having a bunch of weird people (specifically high openness to nudity and sex and drugs not all weird people) around children, especially in a low trust/non gatekept community, dramatically raises risks of child abuse

I've had this argument with the rat/post-rat scene before, and it always baffles me how strong the resistance is. I've had people directly say that no, having nudity and a sex tent LOWERS risks!

I've had multiple people saying that my evidence/argument are weak and burning man does it, so it's totally fine.

that's not a steel man dawg. are you saying that high openness to nudity, sex, and drugs implies tolerance of child abuse?

I don't think your concern is entirely without merit, but I don't think your argument is very good. one thing I noticed at some of the regional burns I've been two is that there is greater expectation of social rule enforcement than at vibecamp. people will narc on you if you violate the rules.

for example, last time there was a guy who pitched his tent a few feet past the property line. he got a warning to move his tent and then got kicked out of the event after failing to do so promptly. I feel like something like that would be less likely at vibecamp, and is imo necessary in the long term to create a safe and trustworthy environment

I'm genuinely trying to have reasonable discussions with people, but I just don't get this sort of thing. The inferential gap here is so large it's hard to fathom how to begin to bridge it. People arguing that it's actually good and healthy to have kids around nude adults they or their parents don't know seem extremely alien to me. Some of these people even have kids, apparently!

Either way, I love the rat/post-rat/EA/tpot scene, I've met many wonderful and awesome people there. Compared to the average normie they're generally intelligent, earnest, kind, and overall fun to hang with. But these sorts of fundamental moral disagreements are why I stopped running a local EA group, and why I just can't identify too strongly with the scene as a whole. I genuinely wish people in these groups had a more traditional sense of morality, a better understanding of boundaries, and generally just cared about Chesterton's fence and second order effects. I hope that these issues don't completely derail the movement (even more, after the FTX poly harem scandal) but I'm not holding my breath. It really is a shame.

This is one of those things where if I had very little experience with children I might find a way to be outraged, but now that I've spent some time around them, have a sister with a couple, good friends with some and have gotten teasingly close to having my own I just have to imagine "is vibe camp somewhere I'd take young children unless I was totally bought in and willing to handle explaining nudity to them?" and the answer is probably no. But even if vibe camp was in my local area I probably wouldn't bother to go most years anyways. Who are all these parents taking their kids to vibe camp and having bad experiences? Who are you offended on behalf of?

Who are all these parents taking their kids to vibe camp and having bad experiences? Who are you offended on behalf of?

isn't it also quite expensive to attend? or does it only look expensive to us lowly peons in the real world and not to folx with more money than brains?

It is very expensive, cheapest tickets are like $450 which is as much as bonaroo or more. The main reason I didn’t go back this year, paying almost $500 to sleep in a tent isn’t feasible for me at the moment.

looks like it's in the $600 range for a weekend with a cabin, definitely not trivial but basically in line with if not slightly cheaper than other destination festivals. cheaper than just tickets to lollapalooza in comparison which will run you $750 for the 4 day pass.

True but the big difference imo is that the event itself doesn’t hire bands or events. Pretty much all the events are organized and run by the attendees.

I admittedly don't have kids and don't have a TON of experience around them.

That being said, this just seems like extremely risky behavior for little to no gain. As @cjet79 said, there are massive legal risks for doing this sort of thing, not to mention the actual risk of exposure to kids, etc. Basically it's spending a ton of weirdness points in a way I don't think need to be spent.

Personally I'd rather just see them bar kids from the event, which is what most events I've been to like this do.

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