"Isn't it possible the person who is genetically predisposed to being manipulative is manipulating your feelings here?"

Absolutely yes, but I also can't help but notice the argument as you are making it is a bit too powerful; no matter what he says or does, there's no way for him to overcome the argument. We're only a short step away from simply labeling someone a psychopath, then declaring you can't trust anything they say.

We can't really know his internal mental and emotional state here, and that's not unique to psychopaths, that's true of everybody. You may very well still be correct. For all I know, the whole story is made up from whole cloth. But it's at least possibly true, too.

I had that exact question.

When the tiger tells you that he's overcome his taste for human flesh he could be quite sincere, or he could be lying. Even if sincere, he could be wrong.

I wish the fellow the best of luck, and I hope one day we can build a society where we can safely accommodate all the people like him. When I go to the zoo, I feel compassion for the tigers in their cages. But if they're loose, padding around the halls, I'd hope that I'd have the sense not to try to snuggle up to them, no matter how tame they seemed.

You say this like manipulation is inherently bad. If he's manipulated me into feeling sympathy or got attention from HN, good for him. I won't be putting any more energy into his work than writing this response and finish reading comments. I've known many that would score high as being a psychopath, but kept their manipulations to mainly be beneficial to both sides (I fix you/your problem so I don't have to deal with it anymore). I've also had bad experiences, but that has made me learn to see how the manipulations are affecting me in the long run, rather than thinking manipulations are bad as a whole.