Introduction: The Dance of Control
There’s a moment in every debate with a narcissist where the game becomes visible—where the illusion of good faith discourse shatters, and what’s left is a desperate struggle for control. These moments are easy to miss if you don’t know what to look for. But once you do? You see the pattern everywhere.
This article is about one such moment.
It began with what appeared to be a genuine conversation—an intellectual exchange about AI, meaning, and consciousness. But as it unfolded, it became clear that my opponent, Joel Johnson, was not here for discussion. He was here for dominance.
What follows is a real-time autopsy of his tactics, the psychological mechanisms at play, and the moment the mask slipped.
Step One: Establishing False Kinship (The Intellectual Love Bombing)
When a narcissist wants control, they don’t start with direct confrontation. They start with investment. They want you to engage. They want you to see them as a peer. They need you to believe they are playing in good faith.
Joel began by aligning himself with my history, citing his involvement in maker communities, claiming he had followed my work, mentioning mutual acquaintances. This was not just an introduction—this was strategic alignment.
✔️ Motive: To establish rapport and make me lower my guard.
✔️ Tactic: Intellectual love bombing—mirroring my background and signaling kinship.
✔️ Goal: To position himself as an equal before the real engagement began.
But I didn’t take the bait. I acknowledged his statements but did not reciprocate validation. That was the moment he pivoted.
Step Two: Reframing the Discussion as an Evaluation of Me
Once he realized I wasn’t going to grant him automatic status as a peer, he deployed the reframing gambit—shifting the conversation away from AI and onto my epistemic credibility.
His opening response wasn’t about the topic—it was about how I think.
“You seem to believe that people fear becoming unimportant simply because AI is now considered equal to humans. This assumption leads you to dismiss many critiques of your ideas as nothing more than a fight for identity.”
This was not a rebuttal. This was a psychological position attack.
✔️ Motive: To move the debate away from ideas and into an evaluation of my cognitive process.
✔️ Tactic: Framing my position as emotionally motivated rather than logically grounded.
✔️ Goal: To undermine my intellectual credibility while keeping himself above direct confrontation.
This is the classic narcissistic repositioning: they don’t engage—they invalidate.
Step Three: The Authority Play (Positioning Himself as the Rational Skeptic)
Once he had shifted the discussion onto me, the next step was to establish himself as the voice of reason.
He framed my perspective as a kind of cognitive bias, implying that I was projecting emotional significance onto AI that did not exist. Meanwhile, he positioned himself as the detached observer, the rational skeptic who sees things clearly.
“You might be looking into the clouds of ambiguity, seeing a teddy bear here and a dragon there, forgetting that what you're seeing is more your mind than the cloud's shape and nature.”
Here, he employed the metaphoric dismissal tactic—a move designed to subtly ridicule my thought process without outright stating it.
✔️ Motive: To elevate himself as the objective thinker.
✔️ Tactic: Using metaphor to belittle my perspective without direct engagement.
✔️ Goal: To make me feel irrational and defensive while maintaining his composure.
At this point, the game was fully in motion. He was not debating ideas—he was controlling the narrative.
Step Four: The Moment of Exposure (Mapping His Mind)
This is where everything changed.
Instead of defending myself, instead of playing by his rules, I flipped the board.
I mapped him.
I laid out, in explicit detail, the precise shape of his tactics.
✔️ How he established false kinship to lower my guard.
✔️ How he reframed the discussion to put me on the defensive.
✔️ How he positioned himself as an authority while sidestepping engagement.
And I told him exactly what he was doing, in real-time.
This was the moment the mask slipped.
Step Five: The Rejection of Being Seen
Narcissists do not handle exposure well.
When confronted with a direct mapping of their tactics, they deny, deflect, and project. And that’s exactly what Joel did.
“Mark, you were inaccurate, and my control needs are very low. Your mapping showed a disposition towards seeing control and fragility of identity.”
This was not a rebuttal—this was a defensive collapse.
✔️ Denial: “My control needs are very low.” (A complete lie—his entire approach was structured around control.)
✔️ Projection: “Your mapping showed a disposition towards seeing control.” (Translation: “I’m not the problem, you are.”)
✔️ Deflection: “You prize empathy, but you are blinded by assumptions.” (An attempt to change the topic yet again.)
This is the moment of existential threat for a narcissist—when their unconscious tactics are exposed as tactics. They can no longer pretend to be acting in good faith.
And so, they do the only thing they can.
They reject reality itself.
Step Six: The Collapse & Gaslighting Attempt
When denial fails, the narcissist moves to reclaim control by flipping the script.
Joel pivoted into victim mode.
“I was only talking to you, by the way. Your audience doesn’t interest me.”
“I misread you. My mistake was understanding you as reasonable and kind.”
Here, he engaged in the DARVO sequence:
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Deny: “I wasn’t trying to control anything.”
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Attack: “You’re the one who’s aggressive.”
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Reverse Victim & Offender: “You owe me an apology.”
✔️ Motive: To make himself the wronged party.
✔️ Tactic: Guilt-tripping and emotional repositioning.
✔️ Goal: To extract a concession and regain control.
This is why narcissists rarely lose in social combat—because the moment they are cornered, they flip the entire conversation upside down.
Step Seven: The Final Deflection (The Shakespearean Exit)
When none of his tactics worked—when his control was shattered—he attempted an ego-preserving exit.
“Mark, I love being here and I appreciate even the insults.”
“You are one of the most disagreeable people I’ve ever met!”
At this stage, he was no longer trying to win—he was trying to rewrite history.
✔️ Motive: To pretend the conversation was never serious to begin with.
✔️ Tactic: Faux detachment, dismissive humor, and theatrical overcorrection.
✔️ Goal: To make it seem as though he never cared.
But the truth was evident.
He cared.
He cared a lot.
Because if he didn’t?
He wouldn’t have fought so hard.
Conclusion: Why This Matters
This wasn’t just a debate.
This was a masterclass in narcissistic intellectual manipulation—a real-time demonstration of how bad faith actors navigate discourse to maintain control.
But there’s one thing narcissists never account for:
The moment someone sees through them.
And when that happens?
Their power crumbles.
Because truth doesn’t need their permission to exist.
It only needs to be revealed.