a very large swathe of the poly community is of a new-age and/or neopagan bent

Ugh, agreed.

I think P(newage|poly) - P(newage) > P(rationalist|poly) - P(rationalist) > 0.

I also think P(poly|rationalist) - P(poly) >> P(rationalist|poly) - P(rationalist), which is why we see it as a Common Interest.

As an aside, I've been reading your blog since (I think) before you joined LessWrong; like Wei Dai, you're one of the connections I've made to a different community that has appeared here. I usually read it through RSS, which I think broke. You also appear to have abandoned your earlier blog posts?

it really seems like she was just doing it wrong.

No, this is true. However, I would like to stretch your analogy a bit:

Some people are natural dancers, and don't really encounter the problems you're describing. Some people just know they want to dance, and deal with them.

The person in question is more of the former. In dozens of relationships she's never acted jealous before (I've known her for 10 years). She's never seemed to have an issue with it. This time, the first time I've seen her act jealous, she rejected the notion that jealousy could be the source of the problem because she was proud of the fact that she's never jealous.

I'm a dancer too, a really lousy one. By contrast, my other SO is a great dancer. Within six months of starting blues dancing, she was being paid to travel to other states and teach at blues workshops (by the way, if you like swing, you should really try blues). She picks up new dances all the time; I've worked for years on swing dancing and feel barely mediocre. If she encountered a dance style and had our experience with it, she might just give up. She doesn't deal with those difficulties because she doesn't have to.

In poly, I'm somewhere in between, but closer to "natural". I've felt jealous pangs a few times, but never felt them long enough for me to get a chance to talk them over with someone. I always mention them to the person they were regarding after the fact, but they've always gone away before I need to take action to get rid of them. If the next time it happens it lasts a lot longer, I think I'd know what to do, but it would also be so unusual and unpleasant that it could perhaps shake my commitment to poly. If it did and if my self-image was so wrapped up in poly that admitting that was unacceptable---I'd like to think better of myself, but maybe I'd just ignore that instance and move on.

and even people who are good at it and enjoy it will get hurt doing it from time to time

This I think is true. The woman in question does polyamory well, and has for a long time, and in my opinion should continue to for her own happiness. However, she definitely wasn't doing it right at that time. To my knowledge, it's the only problem she's had that has stemmed from her.

Your point is well taken. Not only do I not have children or dependents, and not only am I still somewhat in "grad student mode", but I plan on eventually going back to school, so I don't really intended to leave that mode before then.

In fact, I probably have an even more extreme form of this condition. I've never been too bothered too much by signaling low status, but I've actually been pained when I signal high status. My first (and only) car bothered me because while I bought it extremely cheaply, it was still in good shape. I feel like I ought not to be driving a vehicle that has working door handles, heating and A/C. My car certainly doesn't signal high-status, but it doesn't signal low-status as strongly as I'd like.

All of that said, the idea of spending 95% of a $100k salary does not sound instrumentally rational at all even if status is a highly-held value.

I object a bit to

housing costs are very high in all places nice enough to provide a respectable middle class environment for raising kids

My parents together usually made less than $20k/yr. while I was growing up (usually fluctuating around the poverty line). I don't know how much they spent on housing (probably a large fraction of that), but I went to an expensive private high school (on scholarship, of course) and didn't mind bringing home friends that came from $250k income families. I really don't think my housing situation was bad even to their tastes, and it certainly isn't somewhere I'd mind raising my kids.

If you one-box, then it's likely that in the overwhelming majority of universes you do exist.

This is incorrect, but I understand the spirit of what you're trying to say (that the number of universes that I exist in is overwhelmingly larger---no matter what, I exist in an infinitesimally small number of universes).

Regardless, this interpretation still doesn't make you cease to have ever existed. Maybe you exist less, whatever that means, but you still exist. Personally, I don't care about existing less frequently.

Lastly, do you think this interpretation allows the problem to pertain to evolution? I still don't think so, but the reasons are more nuanced than the reasons I think the original problem doesn't.

Wow. This actually makes sense, but if this was the intention, nothing in the original post or any previous comment revealed this to me.

So, if the problem is rephrased as: "You might be in Prometheus' simulation, aiding him decide whether to create the real you..." (especially not telling me how many times Prometheus runs the simulation) then I can see the potential utility of doing as Prometheus wants.

I personally don't derive utility from the opportunity to be created in another world, or in the "real world", but I think many people might and do derive quite a lot of utility from it. For those people, in this specific phrasing of the test, I would suggest one-boxing. (I still wouldn't, but I don't mind having my simulation turned off)

I heartily agree with you that if this is the correct interpretation of the puzzle, it has no bearing on Azathoth and how to behave in the real world.

It is; I misunderstood, although I don't think your notation is blameless.

Basically, in the sequence triangle->square->pentagon->... appears to be a process that approaches circle as the limit of the number of sides tends towards infinity. My first (and second) time reading through the article I missed that (x) is not circle of x, but rather the [x]-gon of x.

You don't cease to exist, you cease to have ever existed (which might be better or worse than dying, but certainly sounds bad).

You applied this to evolution as if this was a grave concern of yours. Surely you don't believe that the universe will un-exist you for failing to have lots of children?!

The very idea of having never existed makes no sense! In a simulation, the masters could run back time and start again without you, but you still existed in the first run of the simulation. Once you've existed, that's it. You can believe that your future existence is in jeopardy, but I don't see how you can believe that you will cease to never have existed, much less how one can actually cease to have ever existed.

Well, I definitely am confused. What utility are you gaining or losing?

Is this an issue about your belief that you are created by Prometheus? Is this an issue about your belief in Omega or Prometheus' honesty? I'm very unclear what I can possibly stand to gain or lose by being in a universe where Prometheus is wrong versus one where he is right.

Count me wrong. You understood correctly the first time. See Vladimir's comment; the notation is confusing, but it is a finite process.