BEING a holiday, I will write something less topical. I was introduced to this term in January while watching an interview I highly recommend, that of Kara Swisher, a journalist who transformed coverage of the tech industry and Silicon Valley from 1996 and is an active podcaster, by Misha Husein on Bloomberg Weekend. I learned a lot and was entertained as well.
It is available on YouTube, which is owned by Google. For me, YouTube has really developed into the go-to place for videos of substance. That plus their aggressive moves in the artificial intelligence (AI) space is why among the Magnificent Seven, Google or Alphabet was the best-performing stock in 2025. It was up 65.99 percent after being down 18 percent in the first quarter partly because of the launch of its Gemini AI app and Nano Banana, and YouTube becoming the most watched platform globally, beating network television and cable. Nvidia was up 39 percent and Microsoft up 15.58 percent by contrast.
In response to a question, Elon Musk insulted Misha Husein when she interviewed him by calling her an “NPC,” which Kara and Misha talked about in their interview. I subsequently watched Misha’s interview with Elon Musk. Recommended as well. What is a non-player character, or NPC? Being 67 and someone who has never played a video game, I had no idea what it was, so I looked it up, and a good explanation comes from “What Does It Mean to be Called an NPC?” from gameslearningsociety.org.“Being called an NPC is a modern-day insult, primarily used in online spaces, that suggests you lack independent thought, behave predictably and essentially, don’t think for yourself. The term originates from video games, where NPCs are background characters controlled by the game’s software, rather than by a player. These characters often have repetitive actions and limited dialogue options. When applied to real life, being labeled an NPC carries a heavy implication that your actions, opinions and personality are unoriginal, uninspired and even robotic. It implies a lack of critical thinking and a tendency to simply follow trends or regurgitate commonly held opinions without personal evaluation.”
With the rise of social media, it found use as “a pejorative used to describe individuals seen as conforming to social norms or exhibiting an apparent lack of original thought. The trend gained traction as a way to criticize perceived conformity and herd mentality, particularly within online discourse. This usage is often employed to highlight what the accuser sees as a lack of depth, critical analysis or individual agency. When someone is called an NPC, they’re not just being called boring or predictable. The label is designed to suggest a fundamental lack of awareness or critical thinking skills. It’s implied that the person is a passive participant in their own life, simply reacting to stimuli rather than actively making decisions. The accusation suggests the individual is merely acting out preprogrammed behaviors or repeating ideas they’ve absorbed without independent thought. This can manifest in various ways: consistently echoing the opinions of others without personal reflection, using popular catchphrases without understanding their meaning, or following trends blindly without considering their implications. These behaviors are then interpreted by others as evidence of a lack of genuine self and an inability to engage with the world on a deeper level.”
Oh my, what a supreme and exquisite insult. That phrase has moved to my all-time list of my three favorite putdowns. The others are psittacism and kakistocracy. I have described most of the columns of Cut or Copy and Paste in this paper as examples of psittacism and worse of lousy psittacism. If you are going to do that, at least copy and paste worthwhile sources rather than weirdo right-wing sites like Epoch Times that was even thrown off the internet for being fake and one-sided disinformation (it’s not worth even calling it fake news). I have not read what passes for his work for a few years, so my apologies if he has had a Damascene conversion to worthwhile and original thought.
For kakistocracy, well we are seeing it in some foreign administrations now, and fortunately, we have not had that regardless of administration success or weakness in the Philippines, but let’s not tempt fate. We have had underqualified presidents but at least they were buoyed by some qualified Cabinet appointments, especially for key posts. The problem often with those types of presidents, less so with prime ministers given the more interactive relationship with legislators and opposition, is they often think their job is to decide and give an order, sometimes broad and not detailed or specific enough. The best presidents, like the best CEOs, know making a timely and right decision is not enough, there must be sufficient attention to detail, analysis and devil’s advocate testing before deciding then to follow up on implementation and mid-course adjustments if needed. Making a decision is not enough. It is merely the midpoint between deciding on what and when to do something, and execution and implementation.
However, to do proper analysis on what to do, give the right advice, then the proper follow-up and execution, the decision-maker whether a president, CEO or responsible official or corporate officer must not be an NPC or rely on NPCs. If they were just that, then why bother as the rote thinking will lead to one-dimensional decision-making and often ineffective execution and disappointing results. Haven’t we seen that often to be the norm here? Just listen to many of our pundits and columnists. Are they psittacists or merely NPCs?
The author is an independent director of the state-run Maharlika Investment Corp.