John Carmack, co-creator of the pioneering video game Doom and former CTO of Oculus VR, has said he is “not a culture warrior,” after leftist journalists blasted him for agreeing to speak at BasedCon, a sci-fi and video games conference that rejects woke ideology.
While there is no indication that Carmack has pulled out of the conference, he called it “unfortunate” that the creators of BasedCon had made the event “so intentionally provocative.”
“There is a demographic that welcomes the in-your-face posturing, but it drives away sympathetic people that would otherwise be happy to talk about craft, stories, and technology,” said Carmack in a lengthy tweet.
My comments on BasedCon
It is unfortunate that Rob has made BasedCon so intentionally provocative. I told him as much after the event last year – I felt a little uncomfortable. There is a demographic that welcomes the in-your-face posturing, but it drives away sympathetic…
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) May 18, 2023
“I’m not a culture warrior, and I don’t want to strike blows against anyone. I don’t follow activists on either side… because I tend to think that all the negativity and resentment is detrimental to both the author and target.”
Carmack hopes for a “non-provocative” conference, yet as BasedCon notes on its website, it was founded in response to the takeover of other sci-fi conferences by extreme progressives.
Via BasedCon:
Sci-fi cons used to be a lot of fun. They were places where people of all colors and creeds could get together to talk and learn about science fiction and fantasy books, games, movies, and TV shows. Then, starting a few years ago, things changed. Cons became increasingly dominated by a small clique of authoritarian jerks who made them into venues for pushing social justice dogma and, in the name of “inclusiveness,” shut down any opinions that didn’t align with progressive orthodoxy. You may remember the Sad Puppies saga, which culminated in WorldCon voters selecting “No Award” in several categories of the Hugo Awards rather than reward people outside their tribe. Maybe you’re familiar with the Gamergate debacle. You probably heard about Gina Carano being fired from The Mandalorian because she voiced thoughts outside the acceptable range of opinion. Undoubtedly you’ve heard about the push to get Critical Race Theory and other social justice garbage into schools.
Each of these controversies start the same way: a group of progressive malcontents moves into a space, takes it over, molds it to suit the group’s agenda, and then brands anyone who fights back as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. For whatever reason, the problem is particularly bad in the realm of science fiction and fantasy publishing. As a result, a genre that has historically been about the unfettered exploration of ideas has become stagnant and derivative, and the people running the industry are often openly, unapologetically hostile to a significant portion of their audience. And if you’re an openly conservative sci-fi or fantasy author, good luck getting published.
Breitbart News has covered some of the political battles in sci-fi in the past. At the time, there seemed to be no major event in the space that was not openly hostile to conservatives.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.