#watching the matrix since I feel crummy

[becoach-a]

but i do think beard has dressed as agent smith for halloween before

[merelyahumanbean]

Amazing things my science teacher has said

-"if [student] or [student] busted out and punched you right now i would tell the front office I saw nothing."

-"see, that's the sound of braincells leaving your ears"

-*sees someone drew on the whiteboard* "Okay, who did it." *student admits to it* "you did it so you have to lick it off" *actually licks it* *she is shook*

-*to an identical twin* "If you wake up and aren't feeling like yourself check to make sure you haven't switched places with your brother."

-"i can't legally laugh at that"

-"excuse me, i need personal evaluation"

-"you had pressure, or you're from russia? i didn't hear you"

-"BREATHE, BREATHE YOUNG SIR. that was an ANGRY noise"

-"you see, i'm actually a hologram but you can't tell anyone because they don't have to pay holograms."

-"i've been bullied by middle schoolers so much that i only have one emotion" *expressionless with single tear*

-*talking about how much she hates those high pitched noises* student: I have an app on my watch that makes that noise. teacher: Everyone take their hand, point it toward [student], put you palm up and chant SHAME SHAME SHAME SHAME"

-"please don't joust with the metersticks- we don't have any horses"

-student: so you like science? teacher: it'd be kind of awkward if i didn't 'no, it was the only job my parole officer would let me have'

-"we heard the saw and came running since we're nerds. 'oohhh this is so cool'"

-"i've gone to europe with less stuff than you carry with you every day"

-"he was like 'it doesn't fit in my locker' and the structural engineer with the gun was like 'doubt that'" (the school resource officer used to be a structural engineer)

-”if you're looking for the wayward backpacks theyre not in here" secretary: "no im looking for the assistant principal’s conference room furniture"

-”if anyone has taken the assistant principal’s office furniture now is the time to come clean"

-"there was this girl who came up to us during lunch looking for her backpack. she literally knocked on the door of the teachers lounge and asked for her backpack. I asked her why she needed it. she said 'my phone's in my backpack and I need to call my mother' and so I was 'ok'. so I gave her her backpack and she took her phone out, went to her locker and put her bag RIGHT BACK OUTSIDE HER LOCKER and left. so, of course I put it on and paraded around the hallways because literally what else was I supposed to do?"

"i'm a monkey's aunt"

science teacher next door: *runs in* MEATBALLS MEATBALLS MEATBALLS! our teacher: BEGONE YOU CRUMMY SANDWICH!

"if we ever find a dead animal or sorts we put it in [english teacher’s] classroom cuz she HATES it. if we ever anything left over from dissection we stuff it her desk cuz we're super mature like that"

"something else I've done is look up a parents phone number and dial every number but one and watch the kid go like ARHGHGHRHRGHRGGHHHH"

*playing the melodica during a test*

“i'm going to start throwing hands. with myself. in class"

"slow down! we haven't had any banter yet!"

"wowwwww! that's the second meanest thing somone said to me today. the first meanest was 'you're irrelavent' and I said 'please explain'"

student: I want to be a blackhat hacker. our teacher: *shrugs* If you have the skills, and don't mind prison"

"stealing from someone you know IS STILL STEALING"

"you know, not everyone thirsts for theoretical physics like you."

"that's how every pyramid scheme starts: 'it seems legit'."

"lets accomplish the task first and then we will continue to whine"

*students gossiping to her about people who annoy them* *takes a large sip from her waterbottle* "just drinking up the tea."

"it's all fun and games until someone goes blind. then it's still fun but now you can't see as well."

"oh, you want to troll them? yeah go ahead."

"the theme of this unit is "you can't see them but you just gotta trust me""

*technology isn't working* "ThErE's BeEn A gLiTcH iN tHe MaTrIx"

"science gets mad when we guess- people die."

"if you don't stop talking i'll make you eat these dried beans i found in a cabinet and to top it off this icing that expired in 2016. we opened one in an earlier class, and i literally almost passed it out it was so gross"

"i am a flower."

"raisins are grapes that dropped out of school."

"i drink unsweet tea- yeah I'm already fat enough I don't need anymore sugar. That's what Reese's cups are for. *realizes that she got the wrong tea* He switched it. JAIL." *Science teacher from next door walks in* "TAKE THIS DEVIL'S JUICE AWAY FROM ME." 

"if anyone sets themselves on fire just run in here and close the door."

"i love the nightlife. i love to boogie. until about 9 pm"

"as long as you don't a)do anything that could get me sued or b)set off the smoke detectors I'm honestly fine with anything"

me: *trips on my chair leg* *straightens* YoU sAw NoThInG. my teacher: my lips are sealed.

[derekfoxwit]

Doctor Dorpden’s Critical Tips of Prestige

Note: This post was made with satirical intentions in mind. I’m only emphasizing because I’ve had a couple of comments on previous joke posts I’ve did take it seriously. With that said, here we go.

Tip 1: For starters, remember that when looking at the work, if the Mystic Knee twitches fast enough to punch a hole in a wall, this suggests that the work should be near the lowest of the low. No further development of opinion is needed.

Tip 2: For an equal degree of sophistication, give the warm comfort of nostalgia at least 5 times more chances than the new thing that MAY seem actually poggers.

Tip 3: If you have the anecdote of encountering shitty fans, then use them as a scapegoat for the show they flaunt over being shitty. Clearly, they’re always making the show the way it is.

Tip 4: If you haven’t heard much about a newer film or show you’re yet to watch, there’s an 85% chance that film or show is actually not worth your time. The Father (2020) isn’t as widespread as Joker (2019) for a reason.

Tip 5: At this point, just go for the Asian Artist Dick. I’m actually in the mood to see merit in that because I want to look edgy against cute doodles. Stop attacking Uzaki-Chan, you cowards!

Tip 6: Avoid the electronic tunes. They’ll make you smell like a bum, for there’s no structural in a music album that’s nothing but wubs.

Tip 7: If you see a Tweet that looks dumb, use it as a means of generalizing all the fans of a work as sharing that same opinion.

Tip 8: If the cartoon I’m given doesn’t provide me with mature ideas such as slicing an Arbok in half or fake boobs, then the cartoon might as well be on the same level as Teletubbies.

Tip 9: You know the music is (c)rap when it brings up drugs, regardless of lyrical context.

Tip 10:  Raw mood is the indicator of quality cartooning. If you’re quick to assume the worst in the newest HBO Max original cartoon, then you got thyself a stinker. Same thing if you were super bummed out when watching a new thing, regardless of anecdotal context.

Tip 11:  When you’re not given continuous throwbacks, ensure you’re as reductive and over-generalizing about the works shown as possible.

Tip 12:  If your hazy and imperfect as hell recollection of a children’s film, whether it’s Wall-E or Lilo & Stitch, would describe said film as “too sugary” or “key-waving schlock”, then that HAS to be the case. No meat on that bone whatsoever.

Tip 13: Simpler, more graphic style that isn’t as realistic as old-school Disney or Anime? You got yourself a lazy style with zero passion put into it.

UPA? Who’s THAT?!

Tip 14: Don’t trust anyone saying that western children’s cartoons had any form of artistic development after 2008 (with, like, TWO exceptions). If it did, why didn’t we go from stealing organs in a 2001 cartoon to showing opened stomachs in a 2021 cartoon?

Tip 15: Big booba is always important to the strong female character’s quality.

Tip 16:  Only MY ships count, for they provide me with a feeling of intelligence.

Tip 17: “PG-13″ and “R” rating just simply mean you’re not caring for expressing themes in a sophisticated manner. It’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 18:  In this age of smelly radicals, “Death of the Author” is more important than ever. Without it, this’ll imply that a classic like The Matrix was secretly toxic, due to what the Wachowskis have to say about it being an “allegory of trans people.”

Tip 19: Turn the fandoms you hate into your torture porn. Ask in Tweets to Retweet one sentence that’d “trigger” them. Go out of your way to paint all of them as blind consoomers. That’ll show them, and it’ll show how much more intelligent you are compared to those clowns.

Tip 20: Whatever the Mystic Knee dictates upon the first viewing of a work is what shall indicate the full structural extent of the film.

Tip 21: The mindset of a 2000s edgelord is one that actually understands the artistry of the medium of animation. Listen to that crazy but ingenious man.

Tip 22: Because sheer ambition makes me feel manly, the high pedestal you bestow upon a cartoon work should be based mostly on the mere mention or mere suggestion of serious topics. This means that pure comedy is smelly.

Tip 23: Is the new work tackling subjects that you’ve loved a childhood work of yours for covering? Just assume it’s super bare-bones in that case compared to the older case, for there’s nothing the older work can do to truly prove itself otherwise. Seriously, Letterboxd. Stop giving any 2010s cartoon anything above a 4/5

Tip 24: If the Mystic Knee is suggesting that the work is crummy, then consider any explanation off the top of your head for why the work in question is crummy.

Tip 25: Sexual and gender identity is inherently political, so don’t focus on them in the story. It’s no wonder why Full Metal Alchemist has caught on more than the She-Ra reboot.

Tip 26: Since I got bothered by a random butt monkey type character in a crummy cartoon, I’m now obligated to assume that having a butt monkey will only harm the writing integrity of the cartoon.

Seriously, Mr. Enter....what?!

Tip 27: We’re at a point where pure comedy for a kids’ cartoon is doing nothing but dumbing down the children. Like seriously...... I doubt Billy and Mandy would ever use farts as a punchline, unlike these newer kids comedies.

Tip 28: The difference between the innuendo in kids’ cartoons I grew up on and the ones Zootopia made is the sense of prestige they give me. Just take notes from the former instead.

Tip 29: Wanna make a work of artistic merit? Just take notes from the stuff I whore out to. It’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 30: Always remember this golden rule: If the newer work, or a work you’ve recently experienced the first time, was truly great, why isn’t it providing the exact emotions from your younger, more impressionable years?

Tip 31: If the Mystic Knee aims to break the bones of a character doing certain things (.i.e. having body count of thousands; lashing out to character; etc.), that means the character is bad and deserves no redemption.

Tip 32: If you want me to believe there’s any intrigue or depth in your antagonist, give them redemption, for I am in need of that sorta thing being spelled out. Looking at you, Syndrome. Should’ve taken notes from Tai Lung.

Tip 33: In a case where you’re going “X > Y” (.i.e. manga compared to western comics), ALWAYS CHERRY PICK! Use the recent controversies of the “Y” item while pretending that the “X” item has never had anything of the sort.

Tip 34: BEFORE you bring up those comments that shat on the original Teen Titans cartoon back when it was new, whether for making Starfire “more PC” or whatever.......the DIFFERENCE between them and me is that THEY were just bad faith fools that couldn’t see true majesty out of blind rage. I, however, am truly certain that calling any western TV cartoon from 2014-onward a work that transcends its generation suggests a destruction of the medium.

Tip 35: Based on fandom growth, it shows that any newer show isn’t being watched much by kids, but rather loser adults that act like children. Therefore, there’s more prestige in what I grew with.

Tip 36: The focus on children is bad at this point since the children of today have attention spans that flies would have.

Tip 37: A select few screenshots (or even one) of either a less elaborate attacking animation, less realistic game graphics, or a less on-model image in a cartoon indicates EVERYTHING about the work’s quality.

Tip 38: Consuming or writing media where characters go through constant suffering is little more than gaining pleasure out of it. YOU SICKOS!

Looking at you, Lily Orchard!

Tip 39: Whether it’s a sexual awakening story or just simply a romance, focus on a character being lesbian, trans, bi, etc., then it shouldn’t be in a kids’ work. It’s too spicy for them by default. Kids don’t want romance anyway.

Tip 40: The very idea of a western cartoon with no full-blown antagonist (i.e. Inside Out) is a destruction of animated artistry. Sorry, but it’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 41: Unless it’s my fluffy pillow, such as Disney’s Robin Hood, it should be obligated to assume the inserting of anthros is only there to pleasure the furries. Looking at YOU, Zootopia!

Tip 42: With how rough and rash The Beast was, it shows that he was more of an abusive lover. Therefore, I refuse to believe that Beauty and the Beast has any of the meticulous moral writing that most of Disney’s other 90s films has.

Tip 43: When you suggest one work should’ve “taken notes” from another work in order to do better, BE VAGUE! Those who agree will be shown to be geniuses.

Tip 44: Remember how morally grey Invader Zim was? That really goes to show how little the Western Animation scene has been trying since that show. Really should just be taking notes from that series (and of course anime).

Tip 45: Even if I have a radar that clearly indicates such, hiding the item I look for inside an enemy is always bad, for I refuse to believe it would be inside the enemy.

Goddamn it, Arin!

Tip 46: People struggle understanding your gender identity or pronouns? All there is to see in that is a giant cloud of egotism that reads “My problems” zapping another smaller cloud that reads “other people’s problems”. Seriously, kids are starving, so WHAT if you identity confused someone. Grow a spine!

Tip 47: Stop pretending that adaptations should colorize how a story or comic series should be defined. No way in FUCK can a cartoon or film incarnation become the definitive portrayal of my precious superhero idol.

Tip 48: Enough with your precious “limited animation” techniques, YOU WESTERN HACKS! All you’re doing is admitting to sheer laziness and lacking artistic integrity. Now if you excuse me, I’ll be watching more anime, since that gives me a sense of prestige.

Tip 49: If getting five times more detail than the 2D animated visuals have requires someone getting hurt, so be it. No pain, no gain after all.

Tip 50: Yes, I genuinely struggle to believe there’s this majestic level of layered material without having the most immediate yet still vague re-assurance practically yelling in my face. But that’s STILL the work’s fault, not mine.

Tip 51: Every Klasky-Csupo cartoon has more artistic integrity than any of them cartoons with gay lovers such as Kipo or the Netflix She-Ra show.

Tip 52:  If Sergio Pablos’ Klaus is anything to go by, we have no excuse to utilize those smelly as fuck digital animation “styles” found on Stinky Universe, Suck-Ra or Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turds.

Tip 53: Stop projecting your orientation onto works of actual talent. Seriously, how does Elton John’s I’m Still Standing expel ANY rainbow flag energy?

Tip 54: Hip hop and electronica have been the destruction of music, especially the kind that’s actually organic and not farting on the buttons of a beeping or drumming gadget.

Tip 55: The audience for cartoons has become significantly less clear over the years. We should just go back to Saturday mornings of being sold toys or shit kids actually want.

Tip 56: PSAs for kids shouldn’t be about ‘woke’ content. They should be actual problems such as doing drugs; not playing with knifes / outlets / matches; or acceptance.

Tip 57: The instant you realize a detail in a childhood work that’s better understood as an adult, you’re forced to paint that work as the most transcendent thing in the world. It’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 58: Before you lash out on ALL rich people, remember this: #Not All Rich People.

Tip 59: There’s nothing to gain out of the (c)rap scene other than becoming a spiteful, gun-wielding thug that sniffs weed for breakfast.

Tip 60: Since the Mystic Knee told me to get anal about prom episodes in several gay cartoons, this shows that writing about one’s younger experiences just makes you look pathetic.

Tip 61: Another smelly thing about Zootopia is how it was painting a police chief as stern and exclusive. #Not All Chiefs

Tip 62: Me catching a glimpse of Grave of the Fireflies as a kid and turning out fine shows that you may as well show kids more adult works without worry. No amount of psychological questions being asked will suggest otherwise.

Tip 63: There’s a reason why the Mystic Knee keeps leaning more toward the 90s and early 2000s than most decades. That knee KNOWS where there’s a sense of true refinement.

Tip 64: The BIG difference between rock and electronica? Steward Copeland actually DRUMS. All that the likes of Burial, Boards of Canada, Depeche Mode and several others did was push drum buttons.

Tip 65: One exception to the golden nostalgia is when the work in question doesn’t stuff your face with fantastical, bombastic stories. At which point, there can only be rose-colored blinds covering Nickelodeon’s Doug. Nothing of merit or personal resonance to be found.

Tip 66: Remember that the sense of nuance in the work comes down to there being everything including the kitchen sink, whether it involves multiple geographic landscapes; giving us hundreds of characters; etc. Only through the extremes will I be able to tell there is nuance.

Tip 67: Once you see a joke that has an involvement with sexual or violent content, just ignore the full picture and just reduce it to having nothing to it but “sex, violence, gimme claps.”

PKRussel has entered the chat

Tip 68: With all the SJWs messing up the art of comedy, lament the times where you could be called a comic genius, NOT a monster, for shouting out the word “STAB,” calling a gay weird, painting Middle Easterns as inherently violent, etc.

Tip 69: Guitar twang will always win out over (c)rap beats. There’s a reason your grandma is more likely to listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Kendrick Lamar.

Tip 70: Once the Mystic Knee notices a lack of squealing at the video game with linearity, that shows there’s more artistry in going full-blown open world.

Tip 71: Related to Tips 66 and 68, ensure your comedy gets as much information and mileage out of each individual skit as possible. EMPHASIZE if you need to. Continuously spout out your quirky phrase of “STAB” if needed.

Tip 72: Based on the onslaught of TV shows with many seasons and episodes, animated or otherwise, it shows that there’s more worth going for that than simply having a miniseries or a 26-episode anime.

Tip 73: Building off of the previous tip, you’re better off squeezing and exhausting every little detail and notable characterization rather than keeping anything simple and possibly leaving a stone unturned, especially if there’s supposed to be a story. 

Tip 74: Playing through the fan translation of Mother 3 made me realize how much some newer kids’ works just try too hard to get serious. Why even make the kids potentially think about the death of a family member?

Tip 75: The fear I had over Sid’s toys from the first Toy Story and similar anecdotal emotions are the be-all indicators of what kind of show or film is fitting for the children.

Tip 76:  Seeing this British rapper chick have a song titled “Point and Kill” just further exemplifies the fears I’ve had about rappers being some of the most harmful folks ever.

Tip 77: The problem with attempting to make a more “relatable” She-Ra is that kids aren’t looking for relatability. They want the escapism of buff fighters or something similar. This is why slice-of-life is so smelly.

Tip 78: Based on seeing the rating of “PG-13″ or “R,” I can tell that the dark humor is little more than “hur dur sex and guns.” Given the “TV-Y7 FV” rating of Invader Zim, the writers should’ve taken notes from that instead just so I can sense actual prestige.

Tip 79: The original He-Man has more visual intrigue in its animation than any of those smelly glorified doodles found in the “styles" of the 2010s and early 2020s.

Tip 80: It’s always the fault of the game that my first guess (that I refuse to divert from) on how I have to go through an obstacle won’t work.

Tip 81: Zootopia discussing prejudice ruins the majestic escapism I got from my precious childhood films from 1991-2004. Them kids might as well be watching the news. Now to watch some Hunchback after I finish these tips.

Tip 82: There is no such thing as an unreasonable expectation, and there’s especially no wrong way to address the lack of met expectations! For example, if you expect some early 2010s cartoon on the Disney Channel to be a Kids X-Files, yet you get moments such as some girl getting high on stick dipping candy, you got the right to paint the worst out of that show for not being “Kids’ X-Files.”

Tip 83: Related to my example for Tip 82, if you get the slightest impression of something being childish, you know you got yourself a children’s work that does little than wave keys and has basically nothing substantial for them. In this situation, those malfunctioning robots found in Wall-E are the guilty party.

Tip 84: Without the extensive dialogue that I’m used to getting, how can one say for certain there was any amount of characterization in the title character of Wall-E?

Tip 85: Ever noticed yourself gradually being less likely to expect an upcoming work or view a work you’re just consuming as “the next best thing”? That’s ALWAYS the fault of smelly “artists” (hacks really) and their refusal to give a shit.

Tip 86:  It’s obligatory for your lead to be explicitly heroic just so there is this immediate re-assurance that they’re a good one.

Tip 87: Without the comforting safety net of throwbacks, one cannot be for certain that there has been an actual evolution of a series or the art of animation and video games.

Tip 88: Don’t PSA kids on stuff they give zero fucks about. That means no gender identities or pronouns, race, etc.

Tip 89: Don’t listen to Mamoru Hosoda saying that anime women tend to be “depicted through a lens” of sexual desire. He’s just distracting from the superior prestige found in anime women.

Tip 90:  If you’re desperate to let others know that your talking points are reasonable, just repeat them over and over with little expansion on said talking points.

Tip 91: 7 or more seasons of art is better than 26 episodes of art.  EVERY TIME!

Tip 92: Always remember to continuously talk up the innuendo and mature subject matter of the childhood work as the most prestigious, transcendent thing of all time. With that in mind, there’s a high chance that your favorite childhood work will be better known than Perfect Blue (1997), and there’s likely a reason for that.

Tip 93: An art style that gives many characters relatively more realistic arm muscle details will always shine through more than any sort of art style done for “simplicity” (laziness, really).

Tip 94:  Seeing a few (like, even VERY FEW) people show more enthusiasm for Steven Universe over Invader Zim really shows the lower bar that has been expected out of the western animation scene compared to anime.

Tip 95: Electronic music makes less conventional time signatures cheap as hell. REAL music like rock makes them the exact opposite.

Tip 96: If your Mystic Knee suggests that the 90s cartoon being viewed doesn’t showcase a vague sense of refinement or artistic integrity, then every related assumption of yours is right. EVERY TIME!

Tip 97: Doing everything and the kitchen sink for one series or movie shows a better sense of refinement and prestige than any form of simplicity. THIS includes character design as well.

Tip 98: The advent of that Star Wars: Visions anime really shows just how stinky western cartoons have become.

Tip 99:  For those wondering, no, Europe isn’t being counted in my definition of “western animation”. Doing so is a complete disservice to prestige.

Tip 100: If even less than half of these tips aren’t being considered, you can kiss that prestige badge goodbye. After all, I SAID SO!

[rosehoare]

The future of love

Published in Sunday magazine, 2014

Ready for Valentine’s Day? It’s the day we celebrate the romantic notion that you can love the same person your whole life!

I mean romantic, as opposed to realistic. Because, let me tell you, my friend: by committing ourselves to monogamous relationships with one person (just one! That’s half what’s considered reasonable to help yourself to from a biscuit sampler), we are behaving like sexual anorexics, starving our basic, hardwired hunger.

From a computer scientist’s point of view, forging a face to face connection belongs in the too hard basket. And from a philosopher’s point of view, we are living in an age of such overweening narcissism that we might not be capable of real, scary, grown-up love anyway.

Nevertheless, since our weak minds cling to the delusion of love and our culture obsesses over “cute couples”, and since being single can get to feeling like a slow withering of the soul, the question persists: how can we stay in love and be happy?

Last September, ethicist Brian D. Earp and some colleagues at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Neuroethics co-authored a paper proposing a chemical intervention to a crummy problem we have inherited.

That old “men just aren’t built for monogamy” cop-out turns out to be backed by data observable across species, and championed by evolutionary psychologists.

“The engine of natural selection is that you want to maximise reproduction,” Earp says. “We’re not puppets of our genes, but from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes no sense to have one sexual partner your whole life.”

Things were simpler for our Pleistocene-era ancestors. They lived half as long as we do, roaming around in groups of about 150 relatives, raising their kids communally. And after three or four years, the parenting was done, whereas we live in a more information-rich world, where raising a child to the point where it can fend for itself like the feral kid in Mad Max doesn’t really cut it anymore.

(Procrastination being what it is, I could tell you a lot more about this colourful Pleistocene era, with its woolly mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers and other such “megafauna” which we may, in our lifetimes, see “rewilded” in a Jurassic Park-like situation. Google it if you don’t believe me.)

The point is, Pleistocene parents used to be able to get back amongst it very quickly, while today’s parents are committed to parenting until the child is 16. And even after that, couples are expected to spend decades more as monogamous romantic partners.

Clearly, Earp says, “there’s a gap to make up between what our human dispositions are like and what we expect of ourselves. The question is how do we make up that difference?”

Currently, we respond to the problem with infidelity (10-54% of wives and 20-72% of husbands) and divorce (around 42% in New Zealand). We go to relationship counselling but plenty of couples don’t benefit from it. So Earp suggests we try huffing oxytocin.

Oxytocin is the hormone we naturally produce in situations related to attachment. It floods our system when we orgasm, when we go into labour, when we breastfeed, when we hug. When you come home and see your dog, you get a burst of oxytocin, and your dog does too.

On the face of it, oxytocin seems like a miracle drug for couples counselling. It reduces anxiety and stress (even when couples are discussing a ‘chronic source of conflict'). It boosts trust, eye contact, empathy and attentiveness. Under the influence of oxytocin, couples remember their good times more readily.

It even improves monogamous impulses: last year, neuroscientists found that after inhaling oxytocin, men in relationships displayed less interest in a pretty female than single men.

But it has a few wacky side effects. Oxytocin can turn the volume up on us-and-them feelings like envy, schadenfreude and ethnocentrism -- it makes people less friendly to strangers than they would otherwise be. For people with aggressive tendencies, oxytocin seems to actually enhance aggressive behaviour. It also brings up more bad memories for those with anxious attachment to their mother.

“Oxytocin isn’t just this universal enhancer that makes everything more positive, happy and trustworthy,” Earp says. “It interacts with the person, who they are and what their attachment styles are.”

All the same, for the right people and in the right environment, Earp thinks oxytocin shows promise. “I don’t want to have to be constantly spraying something up my nose in order simply to function in my relationship, but if I used it in a counselling session while I’m learning more productive communication behaviours or something like that, and then I weaned myself off of it but I retained what I’d learned, that could be very useful.”

But enough of bringing our Pleistocene impulses into the 21st century with experimental chemicals! Hasn’t technology already brought us further than that? Set the flux capacitor to 2045, Marty. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!

Dr James Hughes is a sociologist and executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies in Connecticut. I wanted to ask him about the possibility of love with an artificial intelligence (AI).

Some futurists predict that, by 2045 or thereabouts, we will experience something called the Singularity, a point when artificial intelligence will overtake human intelligence, and keep improving at an exponential rate, leaving us all in its dust.

Some people find the prospect of AI menacing. Dr Hughes is not one of those people (although he is concerned about the effect it might have on the labour market). He doesn’t find the idea of a relationship with a disembodied AI all that outlandish.

For one thing, he says, we already interact with AI a lot. Software that uses algorithms and big data to predict what we want -- Netflix, Google, dating agencies -- are a form of AI. And Hughes says we already know that humans “anthropomorphize and seem to take a great deal of emotional comfort from relationships with technology”. In the 1960s, an MIT scientist created a rudimentary chat bot and programmed it with a script for psychotherapy. He was disturbed by how readily people opened up to it.

“The Roomba is another example: the little circular robot vacuum cleaners that wander around your house and suck up your dirt? People were naming them. They would feel heartbroken if one got broken and they’d send them back, and if asked ‘do you want a replacement’, they’d say ‘No, I want my one back’.”

Hughes says the attractions of electronic forms of love and romance are manifold: an electronic partner is constantly available, there’s less risk of sexually transmitted disease or unwanted pregnancy, and you don’t ever have to bicker with your robot lover, unless that’s what you’re into.

And yes, let’s get to the part you have probably been wondering about: sex with a robot or a remote human, via teledildonics and whatnot, promises to be fulfilling and, according to robot sex expert David Levy, commonplace by 2050.

When it comes to the burden of emotional and sexual engagement in a relationship, technology is already helping pick up the slack: a new sex app developed for Google Glass allows partners to stream each other’s points of view, can flash up sex advice in flagrante delicto and can even dim the lights. (Can you imagine anything sexier than watching your partner issue a pre-coital voice-activation command to their wifi-enabled home lighting system?)

Researchers are currently programming facial recognition software to help people with autism read emotional cues, so, Hughes says, “We’re looking at a future where ‘Your wife seems to be happy right now, but she’s really mad at you’ suddenly flashes up on your Google Glass.”

Regardless of whether it’s with a human you only connect with in World of Warcraft or a robot, Hughes believes technology will enable unimaginably richer connections. We’ll use haptic technology that responds to touch; facial recognition software that helps read moods, and nano-neural interfacing that enables us to share thoughts and memories.

“There may be AI in the future who, because of the depth of their programmed understanding of the human mind and emotions, knows you ten times better than anybody else could,” Hughes says.

Ah, but would I feel known? However nice it might be to have a robot lover who can suggest a movie I’ll love, wouldn’t I somehow still compartmentalize my feelings for an AI as being of a different, lesser order to what my feelings could be for a human?

Not if you can’t tell them apart, Hughes says. A classic test designed by math genius Alan Turing pits an AI against a human intelligence, and asks us to guess which we’re communicating with. “Every year, we see AI getting higher and higher thresholds of people guessing they’re human,” Hughes says. “The interesting thing about the Turing test is lots of humans fail it. There are humans whose interaction and style of communication is such that they can’t communicate as fully realised human beings.”

Given how important and universal the experience of love is, philosophers haven’t made a very impressive job of explaining its mysteries. In fact, some of the most influential philosophers had abysmal love lives. Nietzsche sprang a proposal on a girl he barely knew, was rejected and died alone. Kierkegaard had a nice girlfriend, but got emo and broke off their engagement. Sartre and De Beauvoir came close with a markedly bohemian relationship - lots of intellectual chats, no fidelity, no marriage, no kids.

So far, so romantic. Then along comes Alain Badiou’s In Praise of Love.

In an interview format, the elderly French philosopher describes love as a sharing of perspectives that creates a new reality, an event as irrevocably life-altering as when Keanu takes the red pill in The Matrix.

Dr Tim Rayner, a philosopher at Sydney-based consultancy Philosophy for Change, has been pondering love ever since he gave a disastrous speech about its essential unknowability at his brother’s wedding years ago, and he thinks Badiou has come closest to nailing love, on behalf of philosophy.

“Badiou thinks when you fall in love with someone, you see your life again -- not just as it could be, but as it should be.”

“It’s a real world that we’re drawn into,” Rayner says. “It’s not like a window that we can look through and go ‘that was interesting’ and move on. We feel compelled to actualize it, because it’s part of who we are.”

That’s Badiou’s philosophical ideal of love, but it’s not how he sees things enacted. Rayner says Badiou is especially cranky about people looking for “risk-free” love based on mutual compatibility -- the kind of casual, exploratory relationships orchestrated by dating services, where, if things get tough, it’s easy to walk away. Anyone hoping to make love more convenient, to gain the ecstatic feelings without hazarding any disruption to their life, is missing the point. Love, the only way Badiou would have it, is necessarily fraught.

“It’s a very frightening place to be,” Rayner says. “You’re violating the sanctity of the ego and putting yourself in a position of vulnerability. But you need to go there to create the common space of love. And since we do live in a fairly egoistic society, for some people, that’s too much of a leap to make. But if you are going to commit yourself to the love experience, you have to say ‘my life is no longer just about me, it’s about us, and everything I do from now on is about strengthening that bond’.” Then you have to figure out how you’re going to change the world together.

Maybe the new reality you create together is being Hollywood’s hottest power couple. Maybe it’s doing a really sensational home renovation. For a lot of couples, it’s having kids -- a transformative experience that can have meaning for couples beyond fulfilling an ancestral drive.

That’s a traditional perspective, but Rayner says you can experience Badiou’s kind of love outside of a romantic relationship, too. For Badiou, a militant Maoist who agitated in the ‘68 uprisings, comrades can have a kind of comradely love forged by being engaged in a common struggle. And Rayner thinks colleagues -- workers or artists -- collaborating on a project can feel powerfully bonded by the experience of co-creation.

And if you’re single this Valentine’s Day, take heart: you, too, can experience Badiou’s world-reconfiguring, romantic love, all by yourself.

“When you meet another person who just sweeps you off your feet and gives you a sense of how your whole life could be different, often those kinds of relationships are unrequited”, Rayner says. “I mean, the best romances are, right?”