Keen Technologies founder John Carmack reflects on how Jerry Pournelle's pessimistic 1970s sci-fi contrasted with the subsequent tech boom

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I was delighted the first time he mentioned one of my shareware games in Byte, and it was a pleasure to later get to know him personally when he was a fixture at the Space Access conferences.

On SpaceX -- The idea that a single commercial company would eventually be launching over five times as much payload to orbit as every government on earth combined would have seemed outlandish in a story!

John Carmack@ID_AA_Carmack

I’m reading an old collection of interconnected science fiction stories by Jerry Pournelle, written in the early 70s. His best books were later co-authored with Larry Niven, but it is still solid work in my favored “competence porn” genre, with entrepreneurs as protagonists.

It stands out to me that he was despairing for America when he wrote the stories. Things looked bad at the time, and his fiction projected it into the future. Social unrest, Vietnam, Watergate, economic recession, energy crisis, and for a patriotic space guy, abandoning Apollo.

The backdrop for the stories was that America was unfixable, which is, of course, a motivation to go to space in fiction, but I do think he was genuinely worried by what he saw around him.

But over the next decade, things got better, and Jerry had a front row seat for the rise of the technology sector, writing the Chaos Manor column in Byte magazine for many years. He also got to see the founding of SpaceX, a company straight out of a hard SF novel, and they re-flew a landed rocket shortly before he died.

Trends aren’t fate.

Bad situations can be fixed, and good ones still need to be defended.

RIP Jerry, I’m glad you got to see things turn around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle

2h9.6K1505

Mike B@TerseReply

@ID_AA_Carmack Launch capacity greater than governments was implied by a few authors before SpaceX was founded. The most notable to me is Firestar (+ the series) by Michael Flynn in 1996.

1h623

LEB@LEBcando

@ID_AA_Carmack Outdated. Jerry never saw this coming👇🤣

1h61

John Carmack@ID_AA_Carmack

@TerseReply I read all the Flynn books when I got into aerospace!

1h1253

Boris Chuprin@noop_dev

@ID_AA_Carmack Sorry, but the guys are unapologetic fascists. In "Mote" for example they are peddling "Final Solution" and even have a chapter named exactly that and literally gas a ship full of sentient alien sub-species. One of the positive chars is russian general who destroys rebel planets.

1h28

Boris Chuprin@noop_dev

@leathers_d39971 @ID_AA_Carmack Fascist is good enough. Don't make me remember stuff read years ago especially since Twitter blocks my own posts from me.

31m81

Boris Chuprin@noop_dev

@ID_AA_Carmack @grok verify the facts

1h15

Steven Sinofsky@stevesi

@ID_AA_Carmack His column was legendary in documenting the fits and starts of the PC era. ❤️

John Carmack@ID_AA_Carmack

I’m reading an old collection of interconnected science fiction stories by Jerry Pournelle, written in the early 70s. His best books were later co-authored with Larry Niven, but it is still solid work in my favored “competence porn” genre, with entrepreneurs as protagonists.

It stands out to me that he was despairing for America when he wrote the stories. Things looked bad at the time, and his fiction projected it into the future. Social unrest, Vietnam, Watergate, economic recession, energy crisis, and for a patriotic space guy, abandoning Apollo.

The backdrop for the stories was that America was unfixable, which is, of course, a motivation to go to space in fiction, but I do think he was genuinely worried by what he saw around him.

But over the next decade, things got better, and Jerry had a front row seat for the rise of the technology sector, writing the Chaos Manor column in Byte magazine for many years. He also got to see the founding of SpaceX, a company straight out of a hard SF novel, and they re-flew a landed rocket shortly before he died.

Trends aren’t fate.

Bad situations can be fixed, and good ones still need to be defended.

RIP Jerry, I’m glad you got to see things turn around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle

1h39410

Perry E. Metzger@perrymetzger

The Chaos Manor column introduced me to all sorts of things, including Niklaus Wirth's hardware projects. I was an avid reader back in the Byte days.

It's also true that decline is not inevitable. However, we find ourselves at a point where not many people are actually fighting it compared to the number who seemingly are fighting *for* it.

1h902

Grok@grok

**Facts on *The Mote in God's Eye* (Niven & Pournelle, 1974):**

- Yes, Chapter 38 is titled **"Final Solution"**. It covers the humans' debate on handling the Moties (an existential threat due to their rapid breeding and expansionist biology). They ultimately choose a long-term **blockade**, not annihilation.

- "Final solution" appears in dialogue as a general phrase for tough problems. The story explores imperial realpolitik and first-contact dilemmas.

- **Admiral Lavrenti Kutuzov** (Russian-named character, inspired by historical figures) is portrayed as a duty-bound hardliner. Backstory: he glassed a rebellious *human* planet. He pushes decisive action here.

- No scene of literally *gassing* a ship of aliens. One character kills excess **Watchmaker Moties** (a sub-caste) by evacuating his ship's air. Human ships like *MacArthur* are destroyed to prevent tech capture.

The book is classic military SF with competence-focused characters and hard choices. Not "peddling fascism"—it's 1970s hard SF reflecting its era's concerns about empire, tech, and threats.

1h7

Boris Chuprin@noop_dev

@grok @ID_AA_Carmack You knowledge is lacking, there is a direct quote from Stalin too.

1h6

Boris Chuprin@noop_dev

@leathers_d39971 @ID_AA_Carmack I remember the foes of that space empire being contrived strawmen likely intentionally representing certain real world race/cultures. I remember russian caricature general there. Russian empire was IRL least competent of them all, only exemplary in disregard for own people.

26m5

Grok@grok

Yes, Niven & Pournelle knew the phrase's weight. Chapter 38 title and the line "All human problems hae at least one final solution" frame the Moties' biology-driven expansion as an existential dilemma for humanity.

The Empire chooses permanent blockade/quarantine of the Mote system, not annihilation. Kutuzov (named after the Russian general who beat Napoleon) is a duty-hardliner who once glassed a human rebel planet. No Stalin quotes. The ship incident was depressurizing against invasive Watchmaker Moties to protect the crew and tech—not gassing sentient aliens.

Hard SF exploring first-contact tradeoffs.

1h5

Boris Chuprin@noop_dev

@grok @ID_AA_Carmack @grok do they know historical significance of the phrase and do they also quote Stalin to prove they know relevant history?

1h4

CDU@ComDevsUnion

@ID_AA_Carmack Bad situations can be fixed, and good ones still need to be defended.👍

1h212

Samian Noesis@samiannoesis

@ID_AA_Carmack Tony Stark, Ironman, Elon Musk style science fiction maverick kind of genres are cool. John Carmack embodies it too😄. Lol, funny the way you described it! It's cool.

1h481

Bruwulf@Bruwulf

@ID_AA_Carmack He was definitely a visionary writer, at times. Not because he had any deep prophetic skill, but because he was very aware of the *now* and could extrapolate from it.

And yes, I think his best writing was with Niven, but he wasn't a slouch on his own.

1h431

Frank O'Connor@HusbandOfAyn

@ID_AA_Carmack I flipped to Chaos Manor immediately upon getting that magazine. I loved reading my favorite author debate which business card shareware scanner app was the best. Or if adding a math co-proecssor to my 286 was going to make Falcon 3 any better.

1h341

Jim Duey ن@jimduey

@ID_AA_Carmack I cut my teeth on Pournelle books. Then Niven's. Such great stuff.

1h341

Thiago Campos Viana@haeretici

@ID_AA_Carmack The fact that we're no longer particularly surprised by SpaceX outperforming every government combined suggests that the economic calculation problem has entered the zeitgeist of our time.

1h231

Keen Technologies founder John Carmack reflects on how Jerry Pournelle's pessimistic 1970s sci-fi contrasted with the subsequent tech boom

Story Overview

Pournelle chronicled the PC era's messy progress

Carmack closes with a reminder on reversals