I think you’re underestimating non-emotion-based value of a romantic partner with whom you fuse into an aggregate agent via oxytocin reward, and who is actually able to keep up with your research thread. But not drastically; you recently seem better at filtering for this. I also think you’re mostly just seeing what I would call bad relationships and asking why people don’t leave them, which may be partly due to oxytocin payout, but I would want to understand your previous relationship better—in ways I doubt your ex would be excited by becoming public, so, not here—before coming to anything like a conclusion that it’s oxytocin that is paying for those bad relationships.
On the flipside, I seem to have become averse to romance in a way that makes me think my oxytocin system has been partially suppressed due to repeated updates that it makes me vulnerable to forming bad relationships. It’s not clear that that’s healthy with respect to my long term value achievement but I don’t think it’s as obvious as Taylor implies that nobody would ever intentionally give up love for a long period and not regret it. It’s still part of me, but is sort of expecting to be payout of success, rather than one of the forms of ape-enjoyableness self-payment that keeps me able to do things. (those are more like “being warm enough” and “enough food”. I should probably go pay myself that last one right now!) - I do still get plenty of ambient oxytocin-flavor from companionship with friends who are trying to make a positive impact, though, and I do think I would have Burnout<Oxytocin> if I tried to avoid it entirely.
I think you’re underestimating non-emotion-based value of a romantic partner with whom you fuse into an aggregate agent via oxytocin reward, and who is actually able to keep up with your research thread. But not drastically; you recently seem better at filtering for this. I also think you’re mostly just seeing what I would call bad relationships and asking why people don’t leave them, which may be partly due to oxytocin payout, but I would want to understand your previous relationship better—in ways I doubt your ex would be excited by becoming public, so, not here—before coming to anything like a conclusion that it’s oxytocin that is paying for those bad relationships.
On the flipside, I seem to have become averse to romance in a way that makes me think my oxytocin system has been partially suppressed due to repeated updates that it makes me vulnerable to forming bad relationships. It’s not clear that that’s healthy with respect to my long term value achievement but I don’t think it’s as obvious as Taylor implies that nobody would ever intentionally give up love for a long period and not regret it. It’s still part of me, but is sort of expecting to be payout of success, rather than one of the forms of ape-enjoyableness self-payment that keeps me able to do things. (those are more like “being warm enough” and “enough food”. I should probably go pay myself that last one right now!) - I do still get plenty of ambient oxytocin-flavor from companionship with friends who are trying to make a positive impact, though, and I do think I would have Burnout<Oxytocin> if I tried to avoid it entirely.