>This! However if you'll allow me—I think it's worth saying we shouldn’t treat others as impersonal machines to be manipulated _at all_ because we're never really okay with that same behavior being given back to us because of millenia of social, communal evolution.

That’s an argument I think I agree with but am not ready to defend tonight.

It’s much easier to defend the point that if you treat me solely as a resource to be exploited then you shouldn’t be surprised if others or myself treat you solely as a resource to be exploited

One person's view of an "impersonal machine" is another's view of what an appropriate relationship looks like. Some people prefer such associations even in deeper relationships because it prevents one person's encroachment upon another's individual agency and minimizes (or least clarifies) the "social debt" between the two parties rather than assume mutually shared rules of engagement right off the bat.