There ain't no beating my chest going on here. Narcissism takes advantage of our compulsive empathy that's absolutely true. And im well fuckng aware its the reason were being wiped out. But its a parasite/host relationship. The parasite has evolved strategies that are specific to the host. This is what I'm saying. Theyve been honing these strategies for thousands of years, but its been done in the same shotgun manner as the narc throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. They don't have a conscious understanding of why what they do works. Hence, I don't think they deserve much in the way of credit for it. Narcs aren't genius manipulators, they're just incredibly egotistical, and have brass balls. >The guy who gains the world without contributing anything to it is, unfortunately, the smartest person in the room. Personally, i thinks thats absolutely ridiculous. And I don't think saying intelligence and nobility are interrelated is conflating disparate concepts together at all. Its sounds pretty reasonable if you ask me. Verbal intelligence is supposed to mean (according to the first search results I plugged in) - "the ability to understand and reason using concepts framed in words. More broadly, it is linked to problem solving, abstract reasoning, and working memory." Or--- "Verbal-linguistic intelligence handles the production of language, including poetry, metaphors, similes, grammar, literature, tongue twisters, and abstract reasoning." Doesn't that sound more like *us* than them? I think weve been jewed into believing the evil side of the verbal intelligence coin is the one that deserves the credit. Its what happens with everything. Its all part of their war on language, trying to invert meanings. We end up saying subversive behaviour must equal intellectual capacity. You are conflating the subversion of the thing, with the thing itself. >Not a very high-IQ move to be eradicated by your own compulsive empathy. No. No it isn't. But then its not a hi IQ move to subvert the host organism right out of existence either, is it? But you know, by that logic were *all* retards... I'm fine with this. I just don't think we should give our enemy credit it doesn't deserve.