The Psychology of the NPC

How to Identify Society's Worst People

As a gamer, it delights and amazes me to see the term “NPC” come back into the cultural zeitgeist. I think that the term “NPC” is really wonderful to bring back in the year 2022 because it perfectly defines a certain strain of malignant mental illness which has become sadly all too widespread in our society lately, thanks to the global adoption of social media. If I had to describe this mental illness in clinical terms,I would refer to it as Narcissistic Personality Contamination, but that phrase just sounds so complicated. “NPC” is short, sweet, and gets the point across perfectly, especially in our modern society where so much of the way we perceive the world is filtered through the lens of video games.

What is an NPC? In a video game or role-playing game like Dungeons and Dragons, the term “NPC” stands for “Non-Player Character.” In other ways, somebody without agency. In a video game or role-playing, you assume the role of the hero and you have agency: in other words, you act to shape the plot. Your actions and choices throughout the game will in some way define the final state of the game world and therefore you could be said to be a fully conscious individual. NPCs, on the other hand, do not have agency. Rather than acting upon the world, they stay dormant in the same patterns of thought and behavior, and remain in fixed patterns of behavior until acted upon. As any Thief player or Dishonored player will tell you, their behavior is fairly predictable and can be anticipated - and even manipulated - by observing their prior patterns of behavior up to this point. Past behavior indicates a high probability of future behavior: this is just as true of NPCs in video games as it is in real life. In a way, NPCs could be said to have a script: they are controlled by a rigid algorithm of behavior which dictates their choices.

NPCs do not look like this in real life, but this is a very accurate depiction of their souls.

Not all NPC scripts are malevolent - if that were the case, society would have crumbled into anarchy a long time ago. But sadly, the NPC behavior that I see spreading throughout our society right now is of the malignant kind. It is a narcissistic personality disorder that social media has encouraged, and the reason I refer to it as “Narcissistic Personality Contamination” is because I believe that it is a social disease and if this malady is not triaged and kept in check through legal means, it will destroy our society. Obviously this is a very controversial claim, so the main purpose of this Substack post will be to justify this position and explain why I feel so strongly about it.

How can you identify an NPC? What is their defining trait? If I had to summarize it into a single sentence, I would say “NPCs will always do whatever selfish behavior is best for them, but will try to rationalize their selfishness in altruistic terms.” From this, it may sound like NPCs are shameless liars who do not believe anything that they are saying. But this is only partially true. What makes NPCs so toxic is that they legitimately believe their own rationalizations. After all, the most convincing liar is the liar who legitimately believes that they are telling you the truth. NPCs are masters at doing this. Their brains waste a lot of processing power creating narrative frameworks that allow them to justify their own selfish behavior and express it in extremely persuasive ways. They literally fool themselves into thinking that they’re good people. This is advantageous because it allows them to manipulate the rest of society very effectively: after all, the most persuasive lie is one that the liar themselves believes. The disadvantage is that the NPCs waste a lot of mental processing power on fabricating this narrative, so when they encounter somebody who simply ignores their rationalization and refuses to empathize at all with their self-justifications, they typically find themselves at a disadvantage because so much of their brainpower is dedicated to this self-deception that they often don’t have a lot of mental bandwidth left to strategize with.

For one example of this, take Samuel Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, a crypto-exchange that lost billions of dollars by making illegal trades. When he first got started and was the darling of Silicon Valley, he positioned himself as a member of the effective altruist movement and represented himself as being deeply concerned with the well-being of humanity. But as his Ponzi scheme unravels, we find out more and more with each passing day that he never truly gave any shits about humanity. Samuel Bankman-Fried was a selfish narcissist who wanted sex, money, and power, and he used “the betterment of humanity” as a convenient narrative so that he could think of himself (and publically represent himself) as a good person while pursuing goals that were ultimately very selfish. Samuel Bankman-Fried lied to many people about his motives, but the first person he lied to was himself.

Another more personal example would be my ex-wife, whom I wrote about in a previous post. My ex-wife cheated on me and drugged me with psychiatric medications to try and make me compliant, hoping that she could eventually persuade me to have “an open relationship” so that she could exploit my family’s wealth while gradually bringing her illicit affair out into the open and pretending that it was something new. She doubtless rationalized it to herself as me being “neglectful” or “unsympathetic to her emotions” so that she could convince herself that I was the bad guy, yet the fact is that she could have asked me for a divorce at any time if she truly thought life with me was so unpleasant. The reason she lied to herself about her own motivations for cheating was because it made it easier for her to be selfish, and because on some subconscious level she thought that if she had a plausible justification for her behavior it would stop me from being enraged when her cheating was exposed. Fortunately, I’m smart enough not to empathize with NPCs who lie to themselves about their own motivations, and I simply asked for a divorce when I found out her plan to twist the narrative of our relationship in a way that she could exploit. This is an important lesson for you: never waste your time empathizing with any NPCs because their “feelings” are all self-delusional lies. An NPC will always make whichever choice is the most selfish, but will fool themselves into believing that they have high-minded justifications for their behavior. If you misguidedly allow yourself to empathize with their feelings, then you will be fooled into accepting the same delusional view of the world that they hold, wherein they are the hero of their story. But if you understand that their feelings are entirely fabricated and that they will always choose whichever selfish path seems to take them closer to their goals (and then manifest whichever “feelings” help them rationalize their choices to themselves), then not only will you have a more accurate understanding of how NPCs think, but you will also be able to predict their behavior much more accurately.

The last example I would like to give you of a self-delusional NPC would be Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Klaus constantly talks about the need for the world to embrace “multilateralism” in order to enter into an “age of cooperation.” It all sounds very altruistic, doesn’t it? Imagine nations no longer fighting each other but instead uniting to form a utopia of peace and prosperity. But what makes my faith in this benevolent vision fall apart is when I ask myself whom Klaus Schwab thinks will be in charge of this utopia. Currently, our planet is for all intents and purposes dominated by the United States, and whatever its flaws may be, at least the United States is a democracy whose leader is elected by the will of the people. But the vast majority of the world is not made up out of democracies. Only 12.6 percent of the world’s nations are fully democratic societies like the United States. Even if we count flawed democracies like those of Latin America or Eastern Europe in our total, there are still only 44.3 percent of countries in the world that we could consider democracies. The vast majority of the world is made up of authoritarian strongmen and despots lording their power over everybody else. So when Klaus Schwab talks about “multilaterism” and “cooperation” and deplores the way that the United States acts “unilaterally,” remember that what he is actually talking about is taking power away from democracies and redistributing it to undemocratic societies like China or Russia. Obviously Klaus will take his own share of money and power from those authoritarian governments, as their thanks for helping bring about a world where democratic societies are no longer in charge. Does Klaus think of himself as the villain? I doubt it. I think he rationalizes his selfish behavior and genuinely thinks that more cooperation and multilateral governance would bring about a more peaceful world. To him, the fact that his patrons in the CCP would doubtless reward him with influence and power for helping to fulfill their goals is just a convenient “side-effect” of his agenda. Like all NPCs, Klaus Schwab does whatever is in his own selfish interests and then tells himself a delusional narrative so that he can think of himself as the hero.

This is the problem with NPCs. Ultimately, when you examine their actions, every last one of them is deeply evil. However, NPCs don’t want to be judged by their actions but only by their intentions, and since they always fool themselves into thinking they have good intentions, they will never face punishment according to this standard. NPCs are essentially selfish people who exploit the misguided empathy of others, and that’s why the best solution to the NPC problem is simply for society as a whole to just stop empathizing with them. Instead of assuming good intent whenever they do something wrong, we should simply punish them for their actions regardless of what they claim their intent was.

Because NPCs are so dangerous and can do a lot of damage to anybody who is unprepared for their narcissistic behavior, it is important to know how to identify them. Fortunately there are a number of key indicators that can be used to easily identify an NPC.

The first and most important sign of an NPC is trickle truth. Trickle truth refers to people who spin falsehoods and when confronted, don’t come clean about the truth, but only about the portion of their falsehood that you confronted them on. For example, an adulterous wife might say “I went out dancing with him, but nothing happened!” Confronted with an inappropriate text message found on her phone, she would switch to “Alright, I got drunk and made out with him, but it didn’t go any further!” When an eyewitness confirms that she was seen leaving the party with the gentleman in question, her story would change yet again to “OK, we went back to his place, but we didn’t have sex!” Eventually the story will change to “OK, I got drunk and we had sex once, but never again!” until finally they’re having somebody else’s baby all while swearing they have absolutely no idea how it could have happened. This is why it’s called a “trickle truth.” At each stage of being confronted on their lie, the NPC will switch only the part of their lie that you confront them on, allowing the truth to “trickle out” gradually piece by piece. This knowledge is useful because it means that if you are wondering whether the person you are dealing with is not really a person but simply an NPC, the best way to test their lack of humanity is to confront them on one of their lies which you are aware of - but not to reveal the full extent of your knowledge. A genuine human being in possession of a conscience and a soul will generally come clean about the full story immediately when confronted with one of their lies, but an NPC feeding you trickle truths will change only the portion of their story that you are confronting them on. For example, in the case of the adulterous wife described above, a canny husband who heard an eyewitness mention that his wife was seen making out and leaving the bar with another man should not immediately confront her about leaving the bar together. Instead, he should mention only the making out and see if his wife comes clean of her own volition about leaving the bar with the other man. A human being who genuinely made a mistake would confess everything that had happened - even the parts of the story that are damaging to her - but a soulless NPC would instead attempt to feed him trickle truths as described above, and would attempt to spin the narrative to make herself look good at every turn.

This brings us to another important characteristic of the NPC: a lack of remorse and inability to willingly face punishment for their actions. Normal human beings feel bad when they do something that violates their code of ethics. But to the narcissistic NPC, they are never wrong. No matter what they do, their minds will fabricate some way that they are justified in breaking their promises, hurting their loved ones, or damaging society. That’s because ultimately, their goal is simply avoiding punishment. An NPC is incapable of willingly accepting punishment for their behavior and their internal narrative will always shift so that they can rationalize a way to think of themselves as the victims rather than the perpetrators. When a person like you or I does something that we consider to be wrong, we feel shame or guilt that impels us to modify our behavior and do better. But an NPC never feels guilt over their behavior because in their mind they are always the hero of their own story. This is different from sociopathy because a sociopath knows when they are doing something that society considers wrong, but simply does not care because they have their own code of ethics which supercedes social mores. For example, when I predicted Covid in advance but chose to make money off it instead of warning people, I didn’t feel bad about it because our corrupt society deserved Covid. Society mistreats neurodivergent people like me, and until society adjusts its attitude towards people like me and starts treating us better, I feel zero obligation to contribute to society’s well-being: I prioritize my own well-being first and feel no shame over this choice. However, a narcissistic NPC will do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify why their selfish behavior is somehow moral and good, because it is very important for them to be perceived as virtuous. NPCs are the quintessential virtue-signallers.

Needless to say, NPCs are quite distasteful to be around, and I recommend avoiding them whenever possible. But despite all their unpleasant traits, you may be wondering: why is the existence of NPCs bad for society as a whole? It is because society is essentially an iterated cooperation game. The only reason to play by the rules is because everybody else does. This may surprise you, but not everybody wants to live in a harmonious utopia, and for many people like myself the only reason that we don’t venture out into the world with a rifle to hunt and kill our enemies is because the law that forbids us from doing so also protects us from other people doing the same thing to us. The moment people like me feel that we are not protected by the law (for example, because the law does not adequately punish people who harm us) then we lose all incentive not to harm others. This starts a chain reaction of violence that gradually spreads throughout our society. In other words, society is built around the premise that it is mutually beneficial for people to cooperate with each other. The second cooperation is no longer mutually beneficial, society breaks down. NPCs are bad for society because they hurt others and then exploit the misguided compassion of authority figures to avoid the punishment that they deserve. Then when people like me are wronged and the perpetrators are not adequately punished because of our authority figures soft-hearted foolishness, we in turn perpetrate harm to others, because why wouldn’t we? If the law doesn’t protect me, then why would I obey the law when I could have much more fun through wildly antisocial behavior that causes lots of suffering to everybody I dislike? And even if I was afraid of getting caught by the law (sadly the NSA is watching everybody now), I could still do a ton of damage completely legally by spreading infohazards and conspiracy theories to undermine the existing social order and incite chaos.

The rationalist communities which I am a member of have a very good analogy called the Stag Hunt, or Defector Dilemna. Essentially, the main reason that people originally chose to form societies is because pooling their resources and cooperating with each other allowed them to acquire more resources than working separately - ie, they can hunt larger prey like stag instead of smaller and less profitable prey such as rabbits. But when not everybody participates equally in the hunt, then the stag hunt fails. This is why, from a purely rational perspective, it is critically important to identify defectors and either expel them from the group or kill them. It is because without everybody being on the same page - contributing the same effort and reaping the same rewards - the stag hunt fails, which means there is no point in the group existing. After all, under such circumstances, it is far more profitable to hunt rabbit. This is why the existence of NPCs is bad for society as a whole. Essentially, NPCs are defectors, and they cause high-trust societies to break down and gradually collapse into low-trust societies.

One question that I have occasionally asked myself is: why do our leaders try to suppress discussion of NPCs? (For example, by having their puppets in the media brand any mention of NPCs as an “alt-right dog whistle.”) There are many theories about this, but my best guess is that it is because the ongoing existence of NPCs is proof of their deep failure of leadership. A good leader would do something about these people. If we acknowledge that NPCs exist and that our leaders haven't done anything to mitigate their behavior because of their misguided compassion, then it logically follows that they're shitty leaders and ought to be replaced. Our leaders don’t want to give up their power even though they use it incompetently so they deny the existence of serious social problems rather than taking action to solve them. Part of the reason for Trump’s popularity in 2016 is that he saw how much hatred the public justifiably feels towards these narcissists and dog-whistled that he would hurt them. Sadly, Trump failed to live up to his unspoken promise, but thankfully there are now plenty of politicians who are willing to finish the job that he started and treat these people as the societal scourge that they are.

Are NPCs sociopaths? This is a very valid question. From a certain perspective, I suppose it could be said that all narcissists are particularly vicious sociopaths who simply fool themselves into thinking that they are good people. But from a precise clinical diagnostic perspective, I think that the answer is no. I'm mildly sociopathic myself but I'm not an NPC because I have a strong code of ethics. My code may be wildly divergent from the average person's moral code, but having a moral code that you follow even in private suggests that you're not an NPC. NPCs have no moral code: they do whatever gets them the most attention, sex, and power. Their moral code is entirely virtue signalling and is only displayed in public.

If I had to guess, I would say that NPCs are extreme narcissists. What a lot of people (other than our clueless leaders) understand intuitively is that narcissism can be far more dangerous to society than sociopathy. In fact, I would guess that sociopathy evolved as an antidote to narcissism, because from a game theory perspective, the best thing to do about NPCs is exterminate them. Over a long period of time (which is the only way that iterative cooperation games such as “society” are played), as narcissists interact freely with sociopaths, the narcissists will be negatively impacted by these interactions. Over time and repeated interaction, this negative feedback trains them to behave in a more prosocial way. In a way, sociopaths are the immune system of society because their lack of forgiveness is a perfect counter to the manipulative empathy exploitation that NPCs specialize in. Because sociopaths enjoy mercilessly hurting anybody who tries to exploit them, they do a great job at gradually eliminating the narcissist population, reducing these selfish and manipulative NPCs to sustainable numbers. Without sociopaths to destroy these people, narcissists multiply and eventually collapse the society that they occupy.

Now that you know how dangerous and evil NPCs are, you are probably asking yourself the question “What can I do about them?” It’s not like you’re allowed to go out and gun these people down in the street. That may be the virtuous thing to do, but it’s completely illegal. The answer is that you should vote for politicians who promise to hurt them, and oppose politicians who say that we just need to get along and be forgiving of exploitative behavior. NPCs thrive on exploiting other people’s forgiveness, so when you give them no forgiveness and instead retaliate brutally against their selfishness, you create an environment where over time NPCs gradually get wiped out and their numbers diminish. This creates a society which is more altruistic and prosocial. We Americans used to live in a high-trust society where experts could be relied upon to tell us the truth, instead of lying to us for their own personal gain. Some of my older readers may remember those days. We can get that kind of society back: we just need politicians who are willing to identify what - or whom - is causing the problem, and do something about it.

This may sound cruel, but are NPCs even sentient? I would argue that they are not. If a person always takes the most selfish action possible (regardless of whom it hurts), refuses to accept responsibility for their behavior, and demonstrates this behavioral pattern consistently enough for it to be mathematically predictable, are they even human? I would say that they are not. They seem to me more like algorithms designed to maximize human suffering. Perhaps we should finally recognize this fact, and start treating the NPCs in our society like what they are. Part of the reason that our society is disintegrating is because our elites lie to us far too often, and encourage us to lie to ourselves. I think that it’s time for everybody in our society to start being more truthful with each other. We might all be surprised at how quickly our society’s difficult problems can be solved when we are finally able to address them honestly, without the constant lying and self-deception that permeates our dishonest culture.