Stealing from a thesis on the analytics of love...

Some recent conversations have indicated that analytical philosophy and this amorphous word, 'love,' will make reasonable bedfellows. Passion/intimacy/infatuation/Agape -- meet Occam's Razor. The analytics of love is a rationalist project that strives to unite 'love' and reason on adjacent pillows, beneath ochre sheets, and upon the bedsprings of sensibility and objectivity. Literature may prove it's the first encounter for this cumbersome duo, at least as far as the analytical scalpel cuts, but it's a field whose expansion could yield immeasurable benefits.

The goal is this: tossing out preconceptions of 'love' which are modeled on irrational and undersubstantiated grounds of reference. If 'love' is a commodity (buy-able, saleable, and fully transferrable) whose efficient distribution is forecast by neo-liberal logic, then the invocation of any tariffs/regulations/protectionist measures/or other barriers to trade will result in inefficiency and net economic loss. Remember: make the pie grow and everyone can have a larger piece. The problem is that some people can't stop at one slice.

So the doling out of love in return for payments (be they kinetic, spatio-temporal, or merely fiscal) will ideally be judged on rational grounds that accord a dependent variable with appropriately chosen independent variables. If our dependent variable, L, at time t is a function of log($) at time t [implicit assumption of non-linear bling-bling effect] and I (intelligence), A (aesthetic merit), S (socialization acumen), T (tennis prowess), and MMS (muffin-making skills) if and only if (IFF) all variables are t-tested as significant at the 1% level. We have attempted more forgiving margins of error, but the danger of making a Type 1 error is drastically more heinous than a Type 2. So boys and girls, please check your functional form before concluding your regression.

Our great mates to the south, Emperor Penguins, had been the Christian masthead of serial hetero-monogamy. That was until the chinstrap penguin couple Roy and Silo were shacking up in Central Park and eroding Republic heteronormative moralizing over the animal kingdom. Scrappy's migration from San Diego ruined everything, but showed that even penguins know no scarcity of love. New loves will enter our lives, and old ones will exit. But while it's convenient to say that the width and breadth of love can know no finitude, we must fan ourselves back down from the Olympian clouds and remember that love hesitates to forgive, to resolve, and to move on. Imagine an infinitude of resentment, rejection, and betrayal because we delivered our love too freely.

We must be true to ourselves and claim the rights and privileges inherent in this market of love. If your FDI outflows exceed your own net worth, then you deserve more return on your emotions! Competition too high? Devalue your currency and attract capital investment! Worried about the downsides of autarky? Privatize, decentralize, and deregulate yourself to improve comparative advantage! Just remember, if you want to make your own black beans, you must intensify production and give incentives to the black-bean makers. The same applies to love. When you want the satisfaction of attention from members of the fair sex, you must strategize, capitalize, and aim to monopolize.

In conclusion (not nearly), further attention must be devoted towards natural 'scientizing' love with a potent force of analytical rigor and finesse. Then we might come closer to accepting our own inclination to rationalize love as an amalgam of characteristics and social conditions which weigh into the decision of whom to procreate with, how often, and for how long. And as Roy and Silo have demonstrated, let us not delude ourselves into believing that the answer to 'how long' is a given.