Id Software co-founder and former Oculus VR CTO John Carmack is facing criticism for his recent announcement that he will be attending BasedCon, a sci-fi and fantasy convention for fans who are "tired of woke propaganda."
"I’m going to be at basedcon.com again this year," Carmack tweeted. "I had read books from and twitter-interacted with three of the authors (more since!), but I wasn’t sure what to expect last year. It turned out fun, in a grass-roots con way that reminded me of the old Space Access days.
I’m going to be at https://t.co/plYFgrjxYP again this year. I had read books from and twitter-interacted with three of the authors (more since!), but I wasn’t sure what to expect last year. It turned out fun, in a grass-roots con way that reminded me of the old Space Access days.May 17, 2023
"I was just going to show up as a normal attendee / fan of the authors last year, but Rob [presumably BasedCon fouder Robert Kroese] nudged me into doing a talk and some panels, and I enjoyed it."
Attending a convention is a pretty unremarkable thing most of the time, but BasedCon isn't like most. Its website (opens in new tab) claims the convention "isn't about pushing any particular ideology," while at the same time listing examples of "based beliefs" that the organizers subscribe to:
Men cannot give birth
Guns don’t kill people; people kill people
A fetus is a human being
Socialism has failed everywhere it’s been tried
Discriminating against white people is racism
The website complains that while "sci-fi cons used to be a lot of fun," in recent years they've been dominated by "a small clique of authoritarian jerks who made them into venues for pushing social justice dogma." That in turn sparked controversies like Sad Puppies (opens in new tab), an effort to push right-wing authors to the top of Hugo Award voting, and the misogynistic harassment campaign Gamergate (opens in new tab), got Gina Carano fired from The Mandalorian, and drove the push "to get Critical Race Theory and other social justice garbage into schools."
It also warns that if you happen not to embrace those beliefs, you should probably stay away: "If you think people with a certain skin color can’t be racist or you expect people to use made-up pronouns when talking about you, you may want to do a reality check before coming to BasedCon."
Carmack is known for having something of a libertarian bent—he recently defended the idea of self-made billionaires (opens in new tab), for instance—and has never seemed particularly concerned about his public image. And he gets a lot of slack, because he's a little weird and he made Doom and Quake. But headlining an event like this is a step too far for a lot of his followers on social media.
"I've been a fan of yours over half my life and it's disappointing you're going to an event run by people with such reprehensible views," one follower wrote. "Please reconsider. There's so many better tech events that would gladly have you."
"Dude, you gave me a glimmer of hope interacting with my tweets about forms of address and VR, and now you're going to a party of chuds where /this/ is their raison d'etre," another replied. "This sucks."
One Twitter user pointed out that BasedCon does not disclose its location. The event will be held in an unnamed hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but "for security reasons" does not share specifics with anyone who isn't registered to attend. I think that's a very revealing detail about the real nature of BasedCon: If you're not willing to tell people where your event is being held, maybe it's worth examining why.
The whole thing is kind of gross and sad, and there's really no arguing that Carmack isn't aware of the ugly side of the event. The website spells it all out quite clearly, and as he said on Twitter, he knows the organizer and this won't be his first trip to the show. As many people responding to the situation have pointed out, it all comes down to the old adage: Never meet your heroes. I've reached out to Carmack for comment and will update if I receive a reply.
All those old stories of him making thermite to steal school computers or literally demolishing walls in the ID office so he could see everyone all the time become less "oh quirky guy" and more "oh, small business entrepreneurial freak"
Yeah, looking back, he got so many excuses for creepy/asshole/tyrant behavior because "demon shooty game fun." :debord-tired:
Oh man it sucks that he's such a chode, he's an very talented programmer, I hoped he was just a generic lib.
Always stings when someone who is actually half decent at something is a total asswipe.
iirc the thermite story was almost entirely invented by the guys at id, and the only bit that might be true is that they stole some computers at some point
got Gina Carano fired from The Mandalorian
I thought hiring her was the wokism?
Hire her, fire her, these people don't know what they want and they'll just complain regardless.
There's no internal logic here, they're a bunch of screeching hogs in the dark rolling around in their own shit
screeching hogs in the dark rolling around in their own shit
You've visited 4chan too, huh?
/mu/ had some good recs but discussion there was impossible, everyone was just so insufferable and it took only one person to derail everything into slur town
/tg/ was sometimes interesting until and unless /pol/ or /r9k/ vomited into it, as long "elf slave what do" :JB-shining-aggro: wasn't yet dredged up again that day, or "what is your best villain speech and why is it yet another copy-paste of Ozymandias saying 'I won already actually I am very smart' from Watchmen :manhattan: " or worse "this is my D&D character, she of course looks like a small child, has blood on her face and an empty smile because that's really dark and edgy and never gets old, and is probably a futa dae hate trans people tho" :brainworms: wasn't filling the front pages.
the only good thing about tg is the sharethread, and they helpfully host that off-site now, so you don't have to go there
They also hated that one movie she was in after Disney fired her because it was too woke. Leopards eating faces and so on.
:expert-shapiro: I know I know we have [content] coming for DW+ just keep sending us money and no I don't have any work in progress teasers...just "trust me" :shapiro-poplar:
I had the displeasure of being reminded about Jago, basically he's a religious freak that was recently parading the Mario movie as proof that only conservatives can make good movies, despite the fact that he draws loads of porn so I don't get why he is such a prude.
man, Tony Hawk really is the only 90s guy who's aged gracefully.
And maybe Keanu Reeves
It gives me no pleasure to tell you this but Keanu's tactical trainer is a murderous cop. I know, i cried too.
Tony Hawk looks exactly like he should for his age and I respect it. If you took a picture of Tony Hawk in the 90s and old-ified it it would look exactly like he does now
Sci-fi written by people who can only look backwards, and not with much clarity, must be awful.
It's often profitable because :grillman: and :frothingfash: and :stupidpol: alike enjoy awful sci-fi that panders to their beliefs, in much the same way that they crave "clapter" from chud comedians who aren't funny except in a "he said the hateful thing! Based! Top kek!" way.
It's weird....seeing nerd culture starting to mindlessly pander to the cool kids, or the former football team captains.
I'm a pathetic loser, but let me enjoy my loser hobbies in peace, everything else is one big nazi circlejerk. Just let me have ONE thing where I can be alone in peace.
It’s weird…seeing nerd culture starting to mindlessly pander to the cool kids, or the former football team captains.
At some point the worst jocks and the worst nerds more or less merged into one ideology and started having overlap in individuals as well. The typical Cawadoody power player is often bootbrained and uses as many shallow :up-yours-woke-moralists: product signifiers as possible to stick it to the liberals.
I mean it's kind of expectable but this needs a CW for transphobia, racism and mysogyny.
It's crazy that Romero ended up being the likable one of the two. Romero supports trans rights. So does Tom Hall. Carmack was a hero of mine before I knew anything about him other than what he'd done for programming. What a loser.
Sandy Petersen is a Mormon and I have no idea about his politics, but he's probably some kind of bigot too if I had to guess. He made some of my favorite Doom 2 levels though. American McGee seems cool. Shawn Green doesn't have much of an internet presence.
Bobby Prince (the music composer) I'd really want to know more about him. He was a platoon leader in Vietnam so I would be surprised if he's witness or committed warcrimes. He was also a lawyer but I can't find his case history at all. I hope he's cool and not like the rest because I really admire his music.
I used to almost worship the Doom staff and I should have known all along they were just humans like us.
Sandy Petersen is a Mormon and I have no idea about his politics, but he’s probably some kind of bigot too if I had to guess.
Not all Mormons suck. Brian Sanderson has managed to avoid spewing any kind of vile bigotry across a prodigious volume of literature.
I used to almost worship the Doom staff and I should have known all along they were just humans like us.
As younger people with less exposure to the GenX conservatives of modern day, maybe they did suck less back in the 90s. Or maybe you sucked more (I'm not particularly proud of my teenage political tastes) and so their vulgarity wasn't as apparent. Hard to say.
But I've noticed a consistent amount of brain rot that comes with amassed fortune, particularly when they let you into the Kool Kids Klub and some Epstein type starts handing out drinks.
Not all suck, but Sandy Peterson sure does . CW: transphobia, racism, nazi palling, Ben Shapiro
I'm disappointed but I'm not surprised. His Doom levels are fantastic but he's a garbage human.
Yeah, he didn't just help make Doom, Sandy Petersen was the most prolific level designer for the games. He designed 19 levels in Doom 1 and 17 in 2.
Not only was he prolific, his maps are great. They're usually regarded as the best levels in the games, like in Doom 2 he did map 7: Dead Simple and map 8: Tricks and Traps. Somehow he's also a Mormon. He also writes HP Lovecraft fiction.
Also turns out he's an outspoken transphobe and overall chud.
map 8: Tricks and Traps
Oh I loved that map so much that I still remember it like it's a physical place I can walk in. :sicko-wholesome:
Also turns out he’s an outspoken transphobe and overall chud.
:sicko-no:
Is American McGee chill too? I remember reading how he fucking hated George Bush and went to China to build his company there.
American McGee seems cool but it's kind of sad watching him trying to make Alice 3 for like ten years now with almost no progress or funding. He keeps trying so I don't know if it's just a grift he's running or if he truly believes in it.
The whole "wholesome Alice in Wonderland, but she's a blood-soaked mass murderer" thing is so out of touch. It's not the 90s any more, man.
he could probably get some funding if he just tried doing Wednesday: the video game
She's not really a mass-murderer. In the first game she's trying to overcome the trauma of her family dying in a house fire and the tWiStEd nature of Wonderland is supposed to mirror the state her psyche
The second game's plot is about [CW: Sexual Violence]
spoiler
an evil pedophile psychiatrist sex trafficking orphaned children in Victorian London
which is maybe a step too far for your Hot Topic/Tim Burton platformer game
The whole “wholesome Alice in Wonderland, but she’s a blood-soaked mass murderer” thing is so out of touch.
Feels like it fits right in with a community of twee leftists posting guillotines.
I had the same thing for :melon-musk:. I can't believe I ever thought he was cool.
But hey, at least your hero-turned-villain at least advanced his field. Mine is little more than the Koch Brothers eventual replacement but he's ok with EVs.
So is Tom Hall, if for no other reason than because he no longer has anything to lose.
Feels like shit, just want to go back.
Who'd have thought the term would go from "crackhead" to an extremely online bay area rapper reclaiming it to fascist for "cool".
If nazis maintained their own cultural references instead of perverting others, "based" would have to refer to the alkalinity of the quicklime in the barbara pit.
"Men cannot give birth Guns don’t kill people; people kill people A fetus is a human being Socialism has failed everywhere it’s been tried Discriminating against white people is racism"
who the fuck wants to go listen to some dork that made video games talk about this shit? "wow doom was so fun, but i wonder if the white dev things he's being oppressed. that would be so based"
these people are such pathetic petulant little pieces of shit. on top of that they're fucking dumb as hell.
I read that at as John Romero at first and felt really disappointed. Then I saw it was the other John, and not knowing anything about his politics previously, him being a pissy gamer fossil makes perfect sense for him
Always knew he was High Bazinga ever since he tried to develop his suborbital open top space chair
Sad that this is the same John Carmack who flew into a rage at someone who suggested he patent his programming innovations so competitors couldn't use them. Dude could've been a socialist if he wasn't so far up his own ass.
Many techbros intuitively understand the post-scarcity promise of software technology and free culture, and the better society it could create. But they just don't have any mental toolset to expand that thinking into other realms - they are marinated in the liberatrian grindset instead of any sort of leftist thought.
Socialism has failed everywhere it’s been tried
Citation, and probably some context, needed
They'll wave their hands generally in the direction of failed socialist states (that failed due to immense external pressures) or the internal problems that plague AES at times (again usually due to internal pressure) and go SEE SEE SOCIALISM FAILS
As we all know, capitalism is being very successful right now in the DRC
How many coups do we need to do before you'll realize socialism just fails on its own?
remember, every time you hear this cliche: socialism's failure mode is reverting to capitalism. capitalism has no failure mode, because widespread misery and suffering is considered a feature.