John Carmack returns to QuakeCon for first time in a decade: ‘I’m so happy I’m now welcome’

And his explanation here:

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 people that would otherwise be happy to talk about craft, stories, and technology.

Even when someone gives you a clear signal, it is a mistake to extrapolate it to an entire constellation of beliefs and behaviors, and then to assume they are contagious by association. That shortchanges a lot of people.

I’m not a culture warrior, and I don’t want to strike blows against anyone. I don’t follow activists on either side, including Rob, because I tend to think that all the negativity and resentment is detrimental to both the author and target.

The back story:

I like hard science fiction stories with a bit of competent libertarian vibe. I have ever since Heinlein, but it isn’t a mainstream genre. People here on twitter introduced me to a few contemporary authors that scratch that itch, and I have happily read a half dozen new books in the last few years from authors I would have otherwise been unaware of. It is great to be able to get a recommendation, read a book, then drop the author a DM and say “Hey, I liked your book!”

One of those authors was Rob Kroese, who had started organizing a small gathering of authors and fans that fell a bit outside the mainstream of SF/fantasy. This is a tiny niche of a niche, but I had had Twitter conversations with three of the authors attending, and I was interested in the contrast with the big commercial SF/fantasy conventions I had attended.

I was initially going to just show up as a fan, but I wound up giving a talk about AI and sitting on panels about aerospace and fact checking novels. I met several more authors, and came back with a backpack full of new books to read. Politics didn’t come up once in my conversations.

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1659173689986883584

Meh, still annoying to me personally, his excuse that he likes libertarian sci-fi books so he went to see what it’s like vs “mainstream” cons, is pretty sus.

Well that's just painful to read. I wonder how political a conference could be named before he thinks even showing up is no longer the neutrality he thinks he is showing. "BasedCon" is by its definition a political name, and simply showing up shows you are at least receptive to the message, or willing to ignore it.

I do get that he might be wanting to disassociate the Con from the craft, but if I take it further, would he go to PolPotCon? I doubt he would, even if the interest aligned.