I know many of the Seattle Burners (Burning Man people) well personally. I have no idea if any of them are participating in the riots or this autonomous zone. I don't know the pros and cons of the Seattle autonomous zone. But I have been to Burning Man 10 times from 1999-2008 and co-directed a documentary on it, was deep in the culture and know the history. Several things mentioned were wrong connecting or implying connections not relevant nor true.

The autonomy of the Cacophony Society was a group of anarcho-freedom loving pranksters who liked to party. Some of them had/have other successful lives in business and/or Silicon Valley as is typical for the Bay Area. I'm not aware of any occult activity with any of the Cacophonists I met as they all seemed like modern day hippies in spirit if not in attire.

Burning Man was initially about being free and having a bonfire on Bakers Beach in San Francisco starting with 100 people on the Solstice in 1986. The next year it was 1000 people, and kept growing as did the figure they burned which represented nothing more than a temporary figure, like a Buddhist sand mandala, every Solstice. Then the cops came and shut it all down before they burned it. Stuck with a giant wood man to burn, they moved the event to the long Labor Day weekend camping in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada - named Black Rock long before Burning Man for the little black rocks found there. I have a bunch of them. Black Rock City is the name of the temporary autonomous zone - with nothing do do with "black" anything else.

Being free and fun and noncommercialized was attractive to many people with the means to travel and camp for a week completely self-reliant (not for the poor) and thus much of Hollywood and Silicon Valley attends. Whatever "cult" baggage they bring is their own. Burning Man is the non-cult cult if you must call it one. You make up your own meanings.

I know for a fact that with 50k people, many impaired on booze and drugs, some bad things happen at Burning Man. There is no screening for who is smart enough or good enough, so some "party trash" and many locals (mostly great) will show up. Those bad things do not negate all the good that comes from the Burning Man experiment and the unique culture trying to be better for the most part.

If lawful society was so great then we wouldn't have a desire for lawlessness, for all its faults. Don't demonize Burning Man for wanting new rules. The flaws of the autonomous zones PALE in comparison to the flaws of the "normal" world - as you very well know.

I would agree that some people will take advantage and some people will set it up to fail in order to "prove" that it is a failure and we need the "normal" (centralized) way of things - just like with the riots and all other infiltrated and controlled parts of life. A few bad apples do not mean everyone are corrupted villains. It's NOT mind control if you chose to explore alternative solutions.

Why do I bother defending Burning Man? Because I believe it's primarily a fantastic event and global community and the corporate media would like to smear and suppress alternative solutions and new ways of thinking. Is it perfect? No. Is any community, tribe, religion, philosophy, economy, nation, or even city perfect? No.