That is in fact what I'm saying. It's rational to use the dark arts to convince people to be rational, and irrational to try and use rationality to try and persuade people to be rational.
Yes it would be silly (ie. irrational) to think otherwise. However many otherwise rational people do think silly things.
Are there any areas of study that you feel are underrepresented here, and would be interesting and useful to lesswrongers?
I feel some topics are getting old (Omega, drama about moderation policy, a newcomer telling us our lack of admiration for his ideas is proof of groupthink, Friendly AI, Cryonics, Epistemic vs. Instrumental Rationality, lamenting how we're a bunch of self-centered nerds, etc. ...), and with a bit of luck, we might have some lurkers that are knowledgeable about interesting areas, and didn't think they could contribute.
Please stick to one topic per comment, so that highly-upvoted topics stand out more clearly.