4 ms·

John Carmack working for Facebook is such a huge loss for mankind :(. It makes me sad every time I think about it.

by dyingkneepad 5y ago

monkeytaco 5y ago
He only does light consulting for them currently. He stepped back a couple years ago to focus on his own AI research.
ComodoHacker 5y ago
Maybe he could push it to the better, who knows.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  This move already does IMHO.
- pengaru 5y ago
  Maybe he'd be doing something more useful elsewhere, who knows. One thing is certain though; Carmack is an inspiring role model for many developers. Facebook is not a great direction to lead smart people towards.
mertd 5y ago
He does not need the paycheck. He must think this endeavor is the most worth his while, which is fine.
amackera 5y ago
I admire and respect John Carmack for his role in the history of computing (and his ongoing contributions), but I don't see how making 3D video games was really helping humanity more than this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  Carmack made multiple fundamental breakthroughs in 3D graphics. Not only that, but he consistently positioned himself to commercialize those, which is not easy. His Quake 3 engine was the bread and butter of Id Software, generating billions in revenue. In recent times, he's done coronavirus simulations (I don't know anything else about that), and is doing AGI research. He's also a true hacker through and through. Simply having an example like his, as a model to follow, is helping humanity. I happen to be human, and I distinctly remember his .plan files influencing my decisions in a positive way since I was 13 or so. (The line about getting a hotel and accomplishing as much as possible in 2 days of focused effort was particularly impactful.)
  - quakeguy 5y ago
    He also helped to create a generation of people which modded and created forks of the engines he wrote to use in their own projects, providing the basis for tools to modify assets and whatnot. I owe him so much and I thank him for what he enabled everyday.
    - xtracto 5y ago
      I think a lot of people miss this. I grew up half a generation after him, so I got into computers by tinkering with Commodore Log, GWBasic and later C++/Allegro. But the next generation after that was of a huge amount of kids doing mods for Quake, Doom and the like. It opened the doors in an accessible way to computing for a lot of people.
  - stagger87 5y ago
    > generating billions in revenue. Source?
    - sillysaurusx 5y ago
      I was going to point out another HN'er that said this, but then I looked at the username and it turned out to be me in 2014. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7509095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7509095 Well, at least my ideas are consistent. As for the root source, I suppose I could just ask him now. But the idea came from a slashdot post. Carmack personally responded to some criticisms of Q3 code quality, and said that he was proud of it, and that it had generated a lot of revenue for the company. Billions may have been off by a couple orders of magnitude though. I'm no longer sure. Maybe not too far off, though. The revenue of Q3 Arena alone was $11M. Far more valuable is Id Tech 3, the engine that was licensed by many studios over many years. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find revenue numbers on that. I wonder if it's public.
sillysaurusx 5y ago
People keep talking like he's focused solely on Facebook. He does AGI research. He's sent me screenshots of his experiments.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
baby 5y ago
Really? I see this as a huge win for VR, but different opinions I guess.

John Carmack working for Facebook is such a huge loss for mankind :(. It makes me sad every time I think about it.

monkeytaco 5y ago

He only does light consulting for them currently. He stepped back a couple years ago to focus on his own AI research.

ComodoHacker 5y ago

Maybe he could push it to the better, who knows.

lostmsu 5y ago
This move already does IMHO.
pengaru 5y ago
Maybe he'd be doing something more useful elsewhere, who knows. One thing is certain though; Carmack is an inspiring role model for many developers. Facebook is not a great direction to lead smart people towards.

mertd 5y ago

He does not need the paycheck. He must think this endeavor is the most worth his while, which is fine.

amackera 5y ago

I admire and respect John Carmack for his role in the history of computing (and his ongoing contributions), but I don't see how making 3D video games was really helping humanity more than this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

sillysaurusx 5y ago
Carmack made multiple fundamental breakthroughs in 3D graphics. Not only that, but he consistently positioned himself to commercialize those, which is not easy. His Quake 3 engine was the bread and butter of Id Software, generating billions in revenue. In recent times, he's done coronavirus simulations (I don't know anything else about that), and is doing AGI research. He's also a true hacker through and through. Simply having an example like his, as a model to follow, is helping humanity. I happen to be human, and I distinctly remember his .plan files influencing my decisions in a positive way since I was 13 or so. (The line about getting a hotel and accomplishing as much as possible in 2 days of focused effort was particularly impactful.)
- quakeguy 5y ago
  He also helped to create a generation of people which modded and created forks of the engines he wrote to use in their own projects, providing the basis for tools to modify assets and whatnot. I owe him so much and I thank him for what he enabled everyday.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    I think a lot of people miss this. I grew up half a generation after him, so I got into computers by tinkering with Commodore Log, GWBasic and later C++/Allegro. But the next generation after that was of a huge amount of kids doing mods for Quake, Doom and the like. It opened the doors in an accessible way to computing for a lot of people.
- stagger87 5y ago
  > generating billions in revenue. Source?
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    I was going to point out another HN'er that said this, but then I looked at the username and it turned out to be me in 2014. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7509095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7509095 Well, at least my ideas are consistent. As for the root source, I suppose I could just ask him now. But the idea came from a slashdot post. Carmack personally responded to some criticisms of Q3 code quality, and said that he was proud of it, and that it had generated a lot of revenue for the company. Billions may have been off by a couple orders of magnitude though. I'm no longer sure. Maybe not too far off, though. The revenue of Q3 Arena alone was $11M. Far more valuable is Id Tech 3, the engine that was licensed by many studios over many years. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find revenue numbers on that. I wonder if it's public.

sillysaurusx 5y ago

People keep talking like he's focused solely on Facebook. He does AGI research. He's sent me screenshots of his experiments.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

baby 5y ago

Really? I see this as a huge win for VR, but different opinions I guess.