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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11037 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.

I've been to Vibecamp a few times so I'll take the opposite side: I don't see the big deal.

I've certainly never seen anything weird at Vibecamp of the kind that is imagined here. If I had seen that, or thought it was a realistic possibility, I would probably change my answer.

However, most of what happens is fairly normal. A large group of twitter nerds and postrats spent a weekend in the woods camping and playing games. There are campfire games and marshmallows. There's are a few traditional entertainments. Usually somebody sets up a "tea room" decked out with mattresses and decorations where everyone lays on the floor. Someone sets up a rotating "secret bar" that starts operating in some hitherto-unused location after the sun sets. Probably somebody is running a workshop where everybody practices writing tweets. There's a cafeteria with regular meals but the food sucks so some campers will set up their own provisions. I became very friendly with the guy who does a crawfish boil every year.

The campground is large and the families who bring their kids are given cabins and tents on one side of it. Adult activities are placed far away at the other end of the camp. And in my experience these two kinds of activity never intersected anyways: the children are long in bed by the time people really start drinking in earnest.

Maybe the good nerds of twitter can't explain themselves without opening broader discussions about morals and sexuality and tolerance of drugs. But in practice it's a little like complaining that the same internet has websites with Bluey and websites with porn.

I’ve been as well perhaps I should’ve mentioned that. Are you on Twitter?

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