I've searched around on LW for this question, and haven't seen it brought up. Which surprises me, because I think it's an important question.
I'm honestly not sure what I think. One one hand, love clearly leads to an element of happiness when done properly. This seems to be inescapable, probably because it's encoded in our DNA or something. But on the other hand, there's two things that really make me question whether or not love is a good idea.
1) I have a very reductionist viewpoint, on everything. So I always ask myself, "What am I really trying to optimize here, and what is the best way to optimize it?". When I think about it, I come to the conclusion that I'm always trying to optimize my happiness. The answer to the question of, "why does this matter?" is always, "because it makes me happy". So then, the idea of love bothers me, because you sort of throw rational thinking out the window, stop asking why something actually matters, and just decide that this significant other intrinsically matters to you. I question whether this type of thinking is optimal, and personally, whether or not I'm even capable of it.
2) It seems so obsessive, and I question whether or not it makes sense to obsess so much over one thing. This article actually explores the brain chemicals involved in love, and suggests that the chemicals are similar to those that appear in OCD.
Finally, there's the issue of permanence. Not all love is intended to be permanent, but a lot of the time it is. How can you commit to something so permanently? This makes me think of the mind projection fallacy. Perhaps people commit it with love. They think that the object of their desire is intrinsically desirable, when in fact it is the properties of this object that make it desirable. These properties are far from permanent (I'd go as far as to say that they're volatile, at least if you take the long view). So how does it make sense to commit to something so permanently?
So my take is that there is probably a form of love that is rational to take. Something along the lines of enjoying each others company, and caring for one another and stuff, but not being blindly committed to one another, and being honest about the fact that you wouldn't do anything for one another, and will in fact probably grow apart at some point.
What do you guys think?
Mr. Zerner, a problem with your counter-argument is that you aren't actually going to meet the tens of thousands of hypothetical people who could satisfy all the same desires and needs as a current romantic partner is meeting. You won't even meet one hundred, or, like, thirty. If you're lucky, you could meet a dozen other people who satisfy you romantically as much as any one romantic partner you loved the most satisfied you. . You could take an approach of shallowly connecting with as many women you think are very compatible with you as you can find. However, unless you're some Casanova, that seems like a poor strategy for creating a loving relationship, or several of them (rapidly). So, that doesn't seem like a sound argument for "sorry, my darling, but you're replaceable". I believe this would hold true for almost everyone who would make this case.
Also, it doesn't seem like you qualify how much you (would) love a given significant other. Depending on how much value the person brought into your life, it could take months, or even years, to overcome the loss of their companionship, rather than days, or weeks. It could also take you that long to find someone to replace her with, who provides just as much value to your life. I could generalizing too much from the example of my own experience, but it's the rare person who replaces the most significant romantic partner they've had previously with another in the span of only a few weeks, or a couple of months. I wouldn't be surprised that some people are quicker, or better, at this task, than the average. So, Mr. Zerner, unless you have great reason to believe you're above-average in this regard, don't discount the expected costs of finding a new partner so much.
You're signaling that you have ambitions in life which are more praiseworthy, or laudable, or of a higher caliber, than just pursuing purely selfish ends. You're explaining to a hypothetical romantic partner what else you want to do in life. It seems like you're also trying to explain that to us as readers as well. The way you're asking if love is a 'good idea' seems to be about if committing all the time and effort to something like marriage would require is worth the opportunity cost of not being able to spend that time and effort (trying) to save the world.
I'm suspecting you're asking "how do I balance a commitment to such a lifestyle, while still appearing and being normal enough to do (many of) the typical things typical humans do to be happy?" I suspect you're asking these questions, not only in the interest of playing out an argument, but because, probably judiciously so, you don't have a 'gung-ho', confident solution to this personal conundrum.
You're not the only person with such concerns. I'm a nerd interested in saving the world while being awesome as well. I have similar concerns about committing too much to a single person, or to my family, at the expense of saving thousands of other lives, or whatever. Your concerns are shared by others in this community, and we don't have all the answers. It seems that other folks 'well on their way' to saving the world have encountered this problem as well, yet they haven't given up on making commitments to love others, or without giving up other things which don't broadly benefit others. We could learn much from them.
Ideally, I would prefer that the practical conclusions resulting from discussions on Less Wrong could generalize to, and be implemented within, as many of its readers' lives as possible. So, I don't mean for this response to be critical of your personality, and I hope me raising these points hasn't offended you. I believe it would be better if you were to clarify what your true concern here is though,, and summon the gumption to address it to us more directly. This is because we could have a clearer discussion, that benefits, and interests, more of us.
Maybe you really will need a significant other to rely on you less, lest they meet stringent conditions, or you cannot commit to them deeply. A small minority of people who commit themselves greatly to a cause are capable of that. It seems most people don't, not because they hate the idea, but because forgoing strong social bonds that most everyone else acquires makes them miserable. So, maybe loving someone so much seems irrational when that effort could be spent on other ideas which seem so much more valuable, on paper, than just loving one person.
We can discuss committing to both personally love others, and to making great accomplishments. That seems like a different discussion than this one, though.
Note: edited for brevity.
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