Carmack is a unique case where he’s an obvious autist and pretty smart, but is a brute force pragmatist within that.

So he isn’t a sociopath, per normal understanding, but structurally he’s extremely close, and effectively he is, especially when you realize how much thought he’s put into his direction and decisions compared to most people.

The closest metaphor I can think of is like a robot that chooses to embrace Nazism because it’s pragmatic and has the highest chance for his own survival.

If conditions were different, he would go with that, but they aren’t, and so he is.