My life got worse after I found LessWrong, but I can't really attribute that to a causal relationship. I just don't belong in this world, I think.

I can imagine LW-style rationality being helpful if you're already far enough above baseline in enough areas that you would have been fairly close to winning regardless. (I am now imagining "baseline" as the surface of liquids in Sonic the Hedgehog 1-3. If I start having nightmares including the drowning music, ... I'll... ... have a more colorful way to describe despair to the internet, I guess.)

I don't know if this solves very much. As you say, if we use the number 1, then we shouldn't wear seatbelts, get fire insurance, or eat healthy to avoid getting cancer, since all of those can be classified as Pascal's Muggings. But if we start going for less than one, then we're just defining away Pascal's Mugging by fiat, saying "this is the level at which I am willing to stop worrying about this".

Also, as some people elsewhere in the comments have pointed out, this makes probability non-additive in an awkward sort of way. Suppose that if you eat unhealthy, you increase your risk of one million different diseases by plus one-in-a-million chance of getting each. Suppose also that eating healthy is a mildly unpleasant sacrifice, but getting a disease is much worse. If we calculate this out disease-by-disease, each disease is a Pascal's Mugging and we should choose to eat unhealthy. But if we calculate this out in the broad category of "getting some disease or other", then our chances are quite high and we should eat healthy. But it's very strange that our ontology/categorization scheme should affect our decision-making. This becomes much more dangerous when we start talking about AIs.

Also, does this create weird nonlinear thresholds? For example, suppose that you live on average 80 years. If some event which causes you near-infinite disutility happens every 80.01 years, you should ignore it; if it happens every 79.99 years, then preventing it becomes the entire focus of your existence. But it seems nonsensical for your behavior to change so drastically based on whether an event is every 79.99 years or every 80.01 years.

Also, a world where people follow this plan is a world where I make a killing on the Inverse Lottery (rules: 10,000 people take tickets; each ticket holder gets paid $1, except a randomly chosen "winner" who must pay $20,000)

Is there a list of Scott Alexander's short stories somewhere?

I'm assuming that this is done with their understanding and consent, to the extent that is possible. (I don't think it's advisable, for a handful of reasons, but I think legal difficulties are a minor impediment at best.)

and get a son up to 18 without going through puberty

If the son is not transgender, I would be willing to stick an "abuse" label onto that. This is taking a (presumably) normal human being and fucking him up in a pretty major way.

I’m asking after advice. Here’s my predicament;

I will soon fall over dead from social deprivation. I’m only exaggerating somewhat. I’m living in my hometown, where for unspecified reasons all previous contacts are lost to me. I am unlikely to be able to move for months, at least. I live far from rationalist circles. I’ve decided to try out the study hall to fill the gap a little (yet to do this, time for bed). I will also probably try to forge new circles by going to town and searching for groups to join that are at least adjacent to my interests. This feels (flagging for overconfidence) unlikely to work here, it’s a smallish town. Nice, but still, not academically active in a suitable fashion, that I've noticed.

There are specifics to group-finding in meatspace I am able to work out fine, so I don’t need help there. But that is the extent of my creativity. Am I missing something glaringly obvious? Please tell me I am.

EDIT: Issue solved! Thanks! :D

Does anyone know about any programs for improving confidence in social situations and social skills that involve lots of practice (in real world situations or in something scripted/roleplayed)? Reading through books on social skills (ie. How to Win Friends and Influence People) seems to provide a lot of tips that would be useful to implement in real life, but they don't seem to stick without actually practicing them. The traditional advice to find a situation in your own life that you would already be involved in hasn't worked well for me because it is missing features that would be good for learning (sporadic, not repeatable, can't get feedback from someone who knows what they are doing on your performance, have a lot of things going on beyond the aspects you want to focus on, things can move on without giving you time to think, etc.). For example, this might look like a workshop that involved a significant amount of time pairing up with other participants and practicing small talk, with breaks in between to cool down, get feedback, and learn new tips to practice in later rounds.

Have you looked at whether there are times when your capacity for action and/or enjoyment is better? When it's worse? This might give you some hypotheses to test to get some improvement.

I'll tentatively recommend a diet that's low in simple carbs (refined sugars and refined grains)-- too much sugar knocks me out in a way that looks like an emotional problem, when what's actually going on is that I'm being poisoned.

If you're very fond of simple carbs (it seems to me that the taste of sugar cuts through depression more than a lot of other sensations), start by adding more high protein, high fat, and high fiber foods rather than trying to cut back on the simple carbs directly. I may be assuming that you have more flexibility about what food is available than you're actually got, though.

What happened when you attempted to do pomodoros?

I personally switched to pomodoros by setting low goals at the beginning. The goal was simple to complete one pomodoro per day. Successful completion then allowed me to raise the number.

Try doing whatever it is you need to do (not sure from your posting) physically with other people doing the same thing. I've found that this is both the lowest effort and most effective way for me to overcome akrasia. If you feel like you can't motivate yourself, put yourself somewhere where your goals are downhill from you and let gravity carry you.

Not sure what your exact goals are, but feel free to ask if you want more help.