To answer your question: there are defenses against narcissists. The problem is that these defenses aren't typically useful the first time a narcissist is encountered, since people are usually not expecting an apparently nice, friendly, supportive person to end up behaving this way: narcissistic behavior is contrary to normal human behavior, and therefore usually unexpected.

Narcissists are typically most successful when dealing with people who don't know them well. They can be incredibly charming on first contact. With continued exposure, however, it usually eventually becomes clear to people that the narcissist's motives are primarily or entirely selfish, and that the broad statements and promises that were initially made by the narcissist are not things that the narcissist actually intends to expend significant effort on or perhaps is even capable of doing, and are therefore likely never going to happen. (The narcissist will, however, expertly shift blame for these things not happening onto other people, which may delay this revelation for a while. Shifting credit towards themselves and blame away from themselves is typically one of the strongest social skills of narcissists.)

This growing disillusionment and realization of those around the narcissist tends to increasingly make the people around the narcissist resistant to the narcissist's manipulation, as they start to see the difference between who the narcissist presents himself/herself to be (the "false self") and who he/she really is behind the mask (the "true self").

As people gradually realize this and become increasingly resistant to manipulation, they also become less valuable to the narcissist. In response to this, one way or the other, the narcissist then typically chooses to, or is forced to, move on to a new group of people who don't know him/her, and then repeat the pattern. (See also "Narcissistic Abuse Cycle").

Narcissists therefore have a tendency to move from group to group over time as they wear out their welcome with each.

The people left behind, however, may find themselves left with CPTSD or other similar stress disorders as a consequence of the interaction, and may therefore find themselves getting uneasy for no clear reason, or even having panic attacks, if a new narcissist appears on the scene. Subconscious memories and trauma responses are therefore one of the defenses against being manipulated in this way. Of course, from an evolutionary perspective, these are useful against other types of situations than just narcissists, so it's hard to argue that these responses evolved only for this specific situation.

There are reasons not to be surprised by this, but it requires some research.

Specifically, TFA says:

However, the person who said this is actually wrong. These traits are actually VERY COMMONLY seen together in people who have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is actually quite a bit more common than most people realize.

In fact, these two traits are seen so commonly as to be considered some of the defining traits of the disorder. They are generally phrased as something like "need for approval or praise from others" (this approval or praise is sometimes referred to as "Narcissistic Supply" because narcissists will often chase it even more intensely than money, power, or other apparently more useful goals) and "lack of empathy" (meaning the narcissist tends to be blind to the emotions of others, and tends to assume that, for instance, if he is happy that other people around him are happy, and so forth). There are nine common diagnostic criteria for the disorder, and these are two of them. (Having 5 or more of those 9, as judged by a qualified mental health professional, is diagnostic for the disorder.)

https://my.clevelandclinic.org...

If you study the other common attributes and typical behaviors of people with the disorder, you start to see why people keep falling for these types of people. Narcissists excel at praising people that they think are useful to them or who have high status, and attacking those who threaten to expose them as being less than the perfect and admirable 'false self' that the narcissist tries to pretend is who they really are. They can become experts at manipulating people to give themselves praise and attention. Over time, this essentially becomes a form of conditioning of those people to obey the narcissist at all costs, and can function similar to brainwashing. They also frequently triangulate to use one person or group of people that they control as a means to manipulate others. (Aka "Flying monkeys": that's a technical term in therapy. Really.)

Note the similarities to cult indoctrination. Narcissists very commonly form cults of personality around themselves. Also, someone who has been "trained" by a narcissist is also more likely to fall under the sway of another one, since their defenses (boundaries, etc.) have been damaged and may not function well anymore.

Also, dating a narcissist is one of the worst things you can do for your mental health, and is on the same level as dating someone who is physically abusive. It can cause long-lasting psychological damage that lasts for decades after the relationship is over. With a narcissist, unlike a physical abuser, though, the scars don't show...and even the abused may not understand that they have been abused because they've been taught that they were the problem all along. Many narcissists can do this sort of thing even without really intending to, not out of deliberate malice (although "malicious narcissism" is a subtype), but just due to the way their worldview works: they see the other person as at fault, and can even rewrite their own memories to cast themselves in the role of a hero or victim even when actual events (e.g. video recordings) prove otherwise, since their desire to always see themselves in a positive light is so strong.

The sort of behavior described in TFA is all completely expected for someone with NPD.

(Note by the way that many sociopaths and psychopaths are also narcissists: the disorders are by no means mutually exclusive.)

As an exercise to the reader: Try grading other notable wealthy and powerful people against the criteria mentioned in the article I linked to above. Not everybody fits it, for sure, but some powerful and well-known people clearly do, and in many cases it's not subtle at all. This can be useful: It's surprisingly easy to predict or manipulate the behavior of a narcissist in response to a given stimulus if you know that they are one (they are truly desperate for praise and attention), and many world leaders have shown clearly that they are aware of this and are taking it into account with their own actions.

I, Steve Wozniak, did not participate in the theft of the BASIC. It was funny to me to see others enjoying doing this. I had never used BASIC myself, at that time, only the more-scientific languages like Fortran, Algol, and PL-1, and several assembly languages. I sniffed the air and sensed that you needed BASIC to sell computers into homes, because of the book 101 Games in BASIC. I loved games and saw games as the key. It was the [MS] BASIC that inspired me to write a BASIC interpreter for my 6502 processor, in order to have a more useful computer.

It's hard to find people with Tim Berners-Lee's integrity. We should 'own' our own lives. It's a lot deeper than just being watched.

Interestingly, Vonnegut made it clear in interviews that the story Harrison Bergeron was deliberately intended to be an over-the-top parody of the claims made by Ayn-Rand style "meritocracy" folks, by stretching their belief system to the point of ridicule so he could make fun of it. Vonnegut himself tended towards socialism, as is clear from most of his works. You might want to try reading the story again with that interpretation and perhaps you will see it in a new light.

Some discussion here, and elsewhere.

Also, you might want to learn about Poe's Law.

Personally, I have often found that the people I have known who worry about things like "the tyranny of the weak" often tend to have some pretty tyrant-like ideas themselves, and may imagine that THEY are the best sort of people and deserve to be in control. They also tend to conveniently choose the criteria that "best" is judged by to include whatever they are good at, and not include the skills of others, particularly social skills.

By the standards of most cavemen, you yourself are probably pretty weak, I'd imagine. You probably wouldn't survive a one-on-one fight with one. Or with a gorilla for that matter. Or with a mammoth, or with a sabre-tooth tiger. And yet, weirdly enough, those aren't what rules the world today. It's almost as though the ability to work effectively in groups often outweighs the ability of individuals to excel at any particular skill...

It's not necessarily the strongest who survive. Sometimes they're the first to get taken out. For the safety of others who they might otherwise try to dominate and control. There is still strength in numbers, after all, and just because the strongest, or smartest, or most vicious, or whatever may think they have the right to be in control doesn't mean that everybody else is obligated to allow them into that position. People act according to their talents and protect their interests, and evolution works in far stranger ways than are dreamt of in Ayn Rand's rather simplistic philosophy. Sometimes societal evolution trumps individual evolution, and the battle is won by the most socially connected rather than by the strongest, because that is also a form of strength.

Something to think about.

For 20 years, plus or minus, personal computers reversed that idea.

I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.

You appear to be slightly misquoting Sturgeon's Law.