This might be a bad idea right now, if it makes John’s interests suddenly more normal in a mostly-unsteered way, eg because much of his motivation was coming from a feeling he didn’t know was oxytocin-deficiency-induced. I’d suggest only doing this if solving this problem is likely to increase productivity or networking success; else, I’d delay until he doesn’t seem like a critical bottleneck. That said, it might also be a very good idea, if depression or social interaction are a major bottleneck, which they are for many many people, so this is not resolved advice, just a warning that this may be a high variance intervention, and since John currently seems to be doing promising work, introducing high variance seems likely to have more downside.
I wouldn’t say this to most people; taking oxytocin isn’t known for being a hugely impactful intervention[citation needed], and on priors, someone who doesn’t have oxytocin signaling happening is missing a lot of normal emotion, and is likely much worse off. Obviously, John, it’s up to you whether this is a good tradeoff. I wouldn’t expect it to completely distort your values or delete your skills. Someone who knows you better, such as yourself, would be much better equipped to predict if there’s significant reason to believe downward variance isn’t present. If you have experience with reward-psychoactive chemicals and yet are currently productive, it’s more likely you already know whether it’s a bad idea.
This might be a bad idea right now, if it makes John’s interests suddenly more normal in a mostly-unsteered way, eg because much of his motivation was coming from a feeling he didn’t know was oxytocin-deficiency-induced. I’d suggest only doing this if solving this problem is likely to increase productivity or networking success; else, I’d delay until he doesn’t seem like a critical bottleneck. That said, it might also be a very good idea, if depression or social interaction are a major bottleneck, which they are for many many people, so this is not resolved advice, just a warning that this may be a high variance intervention, and since John currently seems to be doing promising work, introducing high variance seems likely to have more downside.
I wouldn’t say this to most people; taking oxytocin isn’t known for being a hugely impactful intervention[citation needed], and on priors, someone who doesn’t have oxytocin signaling happening is missing a lot of normal emotion, and is likely much worse off. Obviously, John, it’s up to you whether this is a good tradeoff. I wouldn’t expect it to completely distort your values or delete your skills. Someone who knows you better, such as yourself, would be much better equipped to predict if there’s significant reason to believe downward variance isn’t present. If you have experience with reward-psychoactive chemicals and yet are currently productive, it’s more likely you already know whether it’s a bad idea.
Didn’t want to leave it unsaid, though.