Have you changed your mind?

I've always been fascinated by the question: why don't the political beliefs of people of good will and intelligence converge more often than they do? For example, James Hughes is an energetic and prolific leader of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA). He's also a socialist. I remember back in the early '90's, when I was on the extropians list, he would get into lengthy rows with the (mostly) libertarian crowd on the list. Now I'm on one of the mailing lists of the WTA, and he's making the same arguments that he was a decade ago. Why have seemingly none of his views changed over the years?

More alarmingly, I perceive that few of my values or beliefs have changed radically in the past 10 years or so either. Why not?

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Neurobiology of boredom?

Does anyone know of any good reviews on the neurobiology of boredom? I'm familiar with Mihalyi Cziksentmihalyi's books (Flow, etc.) Any suggestions would be appreciated.