Unfortunately, /u/yummyfajitas is severely mischaracterizing the point of "rationality". Viz:
>The point of rationality is to detect your own cognitive failures and to recognize and exploit those of others.
This is false. The point of "rationality" is to achieve greater cognitive success: to have your thoughts yield information about the world by allowing the world to move your thoughts. The people who try to do this (such as, in this case, me) do so because we feel like our thoughts and emotions ought to be about stuff. The more I make my emotions be linked to my thoughts and my thoughts be linked to the real world, the less gnawing self-doubt I have to deal with when things go bad, and the more I can enjoy when things go right.
If all you can do was recognize cognitive failures, you will end up an epistemic relativist, which is useless.
If what you care about is exploiting the cognitive failures of others, you're just a jerk.
You're talking more about epistemic rationality - getting closer to the truth; 'yummyfajitas seems to be talking more about instrumental rationality - doing and thinking stuff that systematically yields success. But generally, you're right, and here:
> If what you care about is exploiting the cognitive failures of others, you're just a jerk.
I totally, 100% agree with you. Rationality is a tool; if you use it to exploit people, you're just a jerk.
Everyone exploits people in this way. Have you ever worn a suit or otherwise altered your appearance to influence the decisions of others? Ever built a landing page using a theme other than default HTML, in order to make people happier when reading? Ever noted an irrelevant shared interest ("hey we both love kale!") to someone you are trying to sell to, or otherwise influence the behavior of?
Is everyone a jerk?
In my view, a big failure of rationalists (coming from the typical mind fallacy, most likely) is that too little effort to manipulations of this sort. It's certainly a failure on mine.
Fair enough. I see what you're getting at, and it's indeed the basic way we communicate - by influencing each other.
I thought long about it and I'm still confused at some points, but I ended up viewing the issue through a lens of intent. Am I exploiting people by building a pretty website? Maybe, in a way that my actions cause them to spend more time on it. But if I do it with intention of helping them accomplish whatever they're looking to accomplish, that will be beneficial to them, then it's ok. If I'm doing it to trick them into wasting more time on my site full of half-assed linkbait content so that I earn money through them viewing ads, then I am a fucking jerk.
So no, not everyone is a jerk. Only those who seek to act to purposefully harm others (usually to gain something at their expense). Which sort of fits the very definition of the world "jerk".
Not everyone sells. Not everyone does any of the things you list. Not everyone's a jerk, at least at a conscious level (and I think people are correct to put more trust in people who will only manipulate unconsciously)
>The point of rationality is to detect your own cognitive failures and to recognize and exploit those of others.
This is false. The point of "rationality" is to achieve greater cognitive success: to have your thoughts yield information about the world by allowing the world to move your thoughts. The people who try to do this (such as, in this case, me) do so because we feel like our thoughts and emotions ought to be about stuff. The more I make my emotions be linked to my thoughts and my thoughts be linked to the real world, the less gnawing self-doubt I have to deal with when things go bad, and the more I can enjoy when things go right.
If all you can do was recognize cognitive failures, you will end up an epistemic relativist, which is useless.
If what you care about is exploiting the cognitive failures of others, you're just a jerk.