[malfmalf]

https://www.basedcon.com/?page_id=85

It's not like they are trying to hide their agenda.

Of course politics should be out of the scope of a SciFi Con, any Con.

But hosting your own "Super-Alt-Right-Con" doesn't seems like an adecuate response, and going to such a conference seems naive for someone that wants to stay "out of politics"

[srdev]

Its getting pretty tiresome for people to host super-alt-right events and then claim that they're moderate or politics-free. If your event is called "BasedCon" then you're knee-deep in politics and those politics are not moderate.

[ajross]

Pretty much. Core to the belief system of any extremist view is the idea that its adherents represent the repressed views of "real" people (be they traditionalist christians or proletarian laborers). No one shows up and puts a label on themselves or their movement saying "We need radical social and political change to meet the needs of my obscure niche internet community!"

[rootusrootus]

> represent the repressed views of "real" people

This seems to have at least some basis in fact, given that the polls have missed the mark when Trump is on the ballot. Pollsters are already grumbling about how they're going to get any sort of accurate predictions for the 2024 election.

[ajross]

> Of course politics should be out of the scope of a SciFi Con, any Con.

Right, because if there's anything that's been historically unimportant to the interpretation of literature, it's politics[1].

That seems ridiculous to me. Literature, and science fiction especially, has always been about telling interesting stories about the way people interact and consructing allegories to help us understand the real world. None of those facts change just because the story being told is something you don't agree with.

[1] Which in the sense we're using it isn't even strictly "politics" (i.e. things that pertain to the selection and operation of government). These are all issues of social change and conflict, which are to first approximation all any interesting literature is about.

[malfmalf]

REAL political issues and REAL politics discussion

If you want to discuss future dystopian alien governments or the racism against the Norbutis of Gahndlon , go ahead

[kentm]

Those fake alien governments and alien racism are metaphors for real governments and real racism.

[malfmalf]

And that's ok

[BugsJustFindMe]

I think it's weird to say that politics should be out of scope at a SciFi con when SciFi itself has literally always been political.

[manuelabeledo]

Absolutely.

People freaking out about politics in sci-fi do not seem to know much about the history of the genre.

Perhaps a good example is the original Star Trek, which depicts an utopian society where there is no money and beings from all across the universe live and work together in harmony.

It was shot in the sixties.

And nowadays it is controversial to have a gay couple in the latest movie sequel.

[throwuwu]

So “Super-Alt-Right-Con” actually means just regular conservative as far as I can tell from reading the page you linked. How are the two different in your mind? Genuinely curious what your definitions are since this is confusing as an outsider.

[ajross]

This is leaning on "regular" too hard. Certainly there are lots of nice conservative people who don't performatively sneer at queer folks. Lots of trans kids have grandparents who love them but still vote republican. "Regular" people aren't, in the general case, assholes.

What's true is that "median" political discourse in conservative circles has swung pretty hard on the sneering side over the past few years. But this doesn't so much reflect the views of "regular" voters as it does an attempt to use this as a wedge issue to pry a small handful of voters from the other side.[1] But "median" discourse is aimed at a tiny fraction of the population! "Regular" politics is boring, so no one reports that stuff. Only voter-motivating controversies make their way into press conference material.

[1] Basically: there are a lot of people, mostly older voters, who hate gender pronouns and all the new social conventions, but who might otherwise be tempted to vote for a democrat.

[malfmalf]

Sorry, was trying to use an US "definition", I might have failed at that.

In Europe everyone who needs to state that things so seriously is usually a fascist nutjob. Not that you can not hold some of that views (well the guns one is definitely US-centric) , I myself may be not so far from some of them (as they are stated, which seems like a trap) but if you need to make them the issues to die on a hill for... yes you are really, really leaning fascist.

[HDThoreaun]

We are certainly in a transitionary period, but "regular conservative" generally means fiscally conservative with maybe some light religious stuff in the US, or at least used to. The list of "based" opinions were all socially conservative takes.

[throwuwu]

It’s odd that you need to use “conservative” in pointing to socially conservative then. Are conservative politicians not allowed to be socially conservative? Who represents people with those beliefs if not?

[HDThoreaun]

Labels can be tough.

> Who represents people with those beliefs if not?

Generally what people would consider to be alt-right politicians, although the alt-right is basically the mainstream powerhouse of the republican party now so maybe we're due for some new labels. Perhaps the better question is "who represents people with "regular conservative" beliefs and I guess the answer is people like Joe Manchin and Romney.

[neetdeth]

What’s alt-right about it? Every example given on that page is a belief I’ve seen espoused by mainstream conservatives since I started paying attention to politics in the late 90s. The “alt” right of the last decade was a reaction against this.

Besides borrowing language from 4chan, it sounds like a cringe con for milquetoast Republicans who feel targeted for their political beliefs.

That describes Carmack to a tee, but he apparently wanted to support ideologically disloyal art without provoking conflict. The organizers were clumsy, and this mea culpa is unhelpful.

[teddyh]

You can’t “stay out of” politics; shunning is transitive. I.e. if BasedCon associates with bad people, BasedCon is surely all bad people. If John Carmack then associates with BasedCon, John Carmack is bad. If you then associate with John Carmack, guess what?

People are open about this. A twitter response says “if there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 Nazis”. Following this principle, if any of those 10 other people leaves that table and sits down with 10 different people, all those people must turn into nazis too, and must likewise be shunned, etc.