Whilst make outrageous claims to assert power is definitely a thing, I think the null hypothesis is less that they're playing 4D chess and more that people who constantly get away with stuff and constantly get told they're geniuses like spoiled children end up behaving like spoiled children. It's like for every "van Halen wants the brown M&Ms removed to audit the venue staff's attention to detail" anecdote there are 100 stars making extravagant demands who are just divas.

Zuck cheating at board games me of Elon buying a claim to being a great Path of Exile and Diablo player. Nobody believes he is, and nobody is loyalty tested into praising his ability at computer games, not even people who work at his companies. He gets mocked for it on his own website. The few people that would actually be impressed by a claim of being good at Path of Exile and Diablo know exactly how bad he is at it and find it pitiful; ironically it actually dents his reputation with a demographic disproportionately likely to be impressed by other things about him. Other people aren't inclined to think highly of him for playing those games in the first place, never mind paying others to boost his account. The reality is simply that when he's interested in a game he can't abide the idea of not being really good at it, and cheating and getting others to do stuff for you is the easiest way to appear really good at it. Especially when you're used to ignoring people calling you out...

This is called "Fuckery:" I tell you a lie. You know it's a lie. I know you know it's a lie. But you have to pretend that you believe it because of the power I have over you.

The Fuckery is a demonstration of that power.

> It may have little to do with winning a board game, and a lot to do with seeing what people will tolerate and what the thresholds are for being called out; it’s a test of one’s intimidation factor.

It’s one of the most famous scenes in The Wire: when Marlo steals a lollipop.

I doubt it's as calculated as that. Trump literally has no concept of truth, so he doesn't lie for strategic reasons. He says whatever makes him feel best about himself moment to moment.

This is textbook narcissism - confusing to those who expect some kind of object constancy who can't deliver it, but predictable from the syndrome.

He also intimidates and threatens more directly, but that doesn't get reported on the news.

Zuckerberg seems similarly fragile, but in a less overt way.

When you have insane levels of wealth your world revolves around your self-image and your desires, your peers are all at similar levels of dysfunction, no one else is likely to challenge you for obvious reasons, so you become socially unmoored and drift into Wealth Induced Psychosis.

I don't know how much this applies to cheating at Catan. Regardless of social standing, few people are going to stop you from cheating at Catan because it helps everyone's goal - to be done with the game of Catan. Although perhaps repeatedly making people play Catan is itself that social power move.

What you are describing is Narcissistic Personality Disorder behavior. It is psychological abuse.

Liars like to lie, and you often see them express what's called "duper's delight" at fooling people. Dark triad types (narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths) will often lie about petty things just to get off on their ability to mislead people.

It's also a form of gaslighting. It makes people doubt their sanity, because nobody would lie about such a thing. It creates an aura of reality distortion around such people and inside that aura they can define reality as they see fit.

Until we learn to see through this stuff and stop elevating such people to positions of extreme power, we deserve what we get.

Unfortunately there’s a pretty large number of people who actually think we need people like this to “do things.” It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. If you stack the ranks of power with dark triad types, then of course that’s the only kind of person who can work in that world. You create a world where only toxic people can get things done and then are surprised that only toxic people can get things done.

This is a good observation, because this tactic is a hallmark of Putin and authoritarianism in general. What he does just lie about something where he knows it's a lie and the audience knows it's a lie, and he knows that the audience knows that he's lying, but the audience is powerless to correct him, so it is his way of demonstrating his power over the audience. He is saying to them that he is so powerful and dominating that he is in charge of their reality.

Masha Gessen has written a fair bit about this.