John Carmack responds to criticism of convention attendance

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Legendary game developer John Carmack has defended his decision to attend a science fiction and fantasy convention for “non-leftist” writers, following criticism on social media.

Carmack announced he would be attending BasedCon this week via Twitter, sparking annoyance from upset followers over the event’s description as an alternative to “the publishing industry’s hostility to authors who criticize dogma. progressive”.

The name of the event comes from “based” Internet slang, which BasedCon’s own About page describes as “the opposite of social justice activism” and identified by “founded beliefs” such as “the discrimination against white people is racism”, “men can’t give birth”, and also “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”.

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“If you think people of a certain skin color can’t be racist or expect people to use made up pronouns to refer to you, you might want to do a reality check first. to come to BasedCon,” the page continues.

Carmack is listed on the BasedCon website as a guest, after an appearance at the same event last year where he gave a talk on AI and participated in panels on aerospace and verification novels. facts.

“Politics hasn’t once popped up in my conversations,” Carmack said now, in a lengthy post published in response to criticism.

My comments on BasedCon

It’s unfortunate that Rob made BasedCon so intentionally provocative. I told him after last year’s event – ​​I felt a little uncomfortable. There is a demographic that welcomes the opposite postures, but keeps the likeable ones away…

— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) May 18, 2023 To view this content, please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings

“It’s unfortunate that Rob [Kroese, event organiser and author] made BasedCon so intentionally provocative,” Carmack wrote. “I told him after the event last year – I felt a bit uncomfortable. There’s a demographic that welcomes the posture in front, but pushes away the nice people who would otherwise be happy to talk about crafts, stories, and technology.

“Even when someone gives you a clear signal, it’s a mistake to extrapolate it to a whole constellation of beliefs and behaviors and then assume they’re contagious by association. This fools a lot of people.

“I’m not a culture warrior, and I don’t want to hit anyone. I don’t follow the activists on either side, including Rob, because I tend to think all the negativity and resentment is detrimental to both the perpetrator and the target.”

Carmack says he was simply interested in attending as a fan of “hard sci-fi stories with a bit of a competent libertarian vibe”…”unlike the big SF/fantasy trade conventions I had attended”.

BasedCon will take place for its third year in September, in a hotel in Michigan. The exact location of the event is not public for security reasons, its website says.

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