John Carmack headlines 'toxic and proud' sci-fi con that rails against 'woke' | Hacker News Reader

John Carmack headlines 'toxic and proud' sci-fi con that rails against 'woke'

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12 pointsdjkivi31 comments

I like hard SF and don't like politics mixed in (even Heinlein can annoy me), so this isn't something I would follow, but I think the case is philosophically interesting. A substantial portion of serious SF devotees think that "good" SF should be transgressive. Well, if the SF community itself allows one perspective on things to be enforced over the community, isn't it adhering to the transgressive mandate to poke against it?

(Note this article is from the middle of May, almost a month ago. It has already had its “outrage cycle”, so to speak.)

In his response to this article, Carmack identifies the original reason he found himself in these circles - “I like hard science fiction stories with a bit of competent libertarian vibe. I have since Heinlein”. I also like those kinds of stories, and likewise I happen to be friends with some of the authors of those stories. I’m speaking from personal experience when I say at least some of these authors are hardline, extremist, radical libertarians.

That is the most important piece of context I can give you for making sense of why someone might be attending and endorsing a convention which lists a bunch of right-wing beliefs like “men cannot give birth” and “a fetus is a human being” on their about page[1]. I asked someone who’s planning to attend about that list; they said (paraphrasing): “I happen to be 2/5, but the point is that I accept anyone from 0/5 to 5/5, so that list doesn’t bother me. There is a type of person who only accepts people who are 0/5. The list is supposed to bother that type of person, so that they don’t attend”. (Note that this is just an attendee, not a speaker or the organizer; I don’t know for sure this is the rationale, but it strikes me as likely.)

1: Because that is a surprising and confusing thing. It is totally legitimate to be surprised and confused that someone is endorsing an event that endorses those beliefs, and to consequently feel hurt and seek explanation!

> “I happen to be 2/5, but the point is that I accept anyone from 0/5 to 5/5, so that list doesn’t bother me. There is a type of person who only accepts people who are 0/5. The list is supposed to bother that type of person, so that they don’t attend”.

I feel like the solution to the Paradox of Tolerance might be in there somewhere.

According to this poll only 22% of democrats or 27% of liberals believed the statement "some men can give birth". It seems absurd to me to call "men cannot give birth" a right wing belief.

I can see why someone like Carmack who's into hard sci-fi would like a venue where they're not just playing semantics and word games.

oops, https://twitter.com/IAPolls2022/status/1567562677513338880?r...

It sounds as if they are playing semantics and word games. They don't have to take a position on the question one way or another, but instead they've made it a defining characteristic of their meeting.

They happen to be playing the side of the game "I refuse to acknowledge that things can possibly be different than I grew up thinking they were." Which seems to me like a weird position for a sci-fi conference to take, but it's not up to me to judge.

I do, however, take issue with the notion that they're not involving themselves, which they are very clearly doing.

> They happen to be playing the side of the game "I refuse to acknowledge that things can possibly be different than I grew up thinking they were."

What do you think is the relevant difference—something that’s a fact rather than a matter of terminology or beliefs?

Those points are actually entirely in line with Sci Fi. In Sci Fi, technological or scientific change is the vehicle for exploring different types of social concepts. The Star Trek world didn’t evolve into quasi-socialism because of moral change, but replicator technology. Sci-Fi typically doesn’t explore “nothing material has changed but we are going to change how we think anyway.”

The existence of trans people is a real thing. If they don't like the terminology trans people use for it, fine, but that's a semantic argument. If they're denying that trans people exist, or that they'll go away if they're denied the right to use certain terminology, then it's a simple factual error.

Gender dysphoria was added to DSM-III (as GID) back in 1980. I’d imagine almost everyone at this conference grew up at a time when this fact was well known.

And yet they're making statements that it's either not a thing, or that they're outraged solely by the terminology they use about it.

If they don't like calling trans men "men", fine, they don't have to. But there are people who identify as men, act as men, think of themselves as men, are treated as men by everyone around them, and yet can get pregnant. This is an objective fact. So either they don't like the fact or they don't like the words. Neither sounds like a good use of their time.

The existence of that self-identification by a small minority of people is an objective fact. But what does that have to do with how the rest of society—medical professionals, schools, etc.—uses the terminology?

Are you saying terminology isn’t important? It sounds like you think it’s very important.

According to a UCLA survey, over 1.6MM trans people live in the US. According to Iceland, 6,492 Icelanders live in the US. If you tried to tell someone "only a small minority of people identify as Icelanders", they'd look at you like a space alien.

Leaving aside the thorny gender issues, ~6,000 in a population of > 300 million is literally a small minority.

They'd probably look at you like you were an alien because most people would say either you're Icelandic or you're not. Even if you were a naturalized Icelander they'd probably also say "oh but you're really American" etc if they learned you were naturalized.

Both are small minorities if you’re talking about definitions of labels that apply to all 8 billion people on the planet. If Icelanders’ self-identified as Asian and people were coming up with new terms when they needed to refer specifically to “asians from the continent of Asia” that would be a parallel example.

The comment that I replied to praised them for not playing semantics and word games. I agree that terminology is important. So it sounds like you're disagreeing with the OP and should mention it to them.

The people rallying against wokeness are becoming more annoying than woke itself, which seems to have a goalpost moving definition every fortnight these days.

What an absolute fool. At the same time, I wish America could do things without almost always shoe-horning politics in there.

- "I want everyone at this conference play by these rules."

- "I don't like those rules, so I won't be coming and I'll start my own conference."

- "Okay, good luck!"

Doesn't need to be hard. Everyone wins. This is a non-controversy because 20 people on Twitter are "angry" (what else is new).

John Carmac is a legend

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