I'm still adding to and altering my outlook at the age of 28. I've always thought it best to never get so entranched in a position that no more knowledge can be gained. An open mind and a critical eye are things that I hope will stay with me till the end.
So what about other people? On a scale of 1-10, how stuck in your ways are you?
My outlook on so many things has changed so drastically over time that I've reached the conclusion that there is always the possiblity of something newer and better. However that doesn't mean I'm likely to all of a sudden accept some older, debunked fallacy that I have rejected, even if it's packaged as a newfound concept. Nothing is older than saying something is new. (h/t Thomas Sowell)
Oh, I've done far too much acid to have the luxury of being stuck in my ways.
Between the years 18 and 19, I made my transition to full blown anarcho-capitalism. I imagine I'll be an anarchist all my life, unless all this wisdom really does fall from the heavens when I turn 40, and I "grow out" of libertariansim. I'm betting against it, though.
I was a minimal-government near-minarchist until about 16. From 16 to 17 I slowly moved to simply minarchist. One month after turning 17 I turned AnCap thanks to these forums. I'm 17 now and hope to explore AnCap, hopefully contribute to the cause, and if needed, challenge my views.
How hard set I am in my views? Maybe 7/10. The 30% is important, though, and I am a person who likes to look at things from all angles, so the 30% can make the difference.
I started believing in free markets when I was around 13ish or something in that neighborhood. For some reason, it just clicked in my head to say that, for the most part, people acting in individual interests will most likely engage in productive energies which contribute at-large to society and I also came to the fact all by myself that any exchange between two people is beneficial (or perceived to be beneficial at the time) or else the exchange wouldn't take place. I always kept in mind that these transactions were voluntary and could not happen if one party desires not to engage in the exchange.
However, I didn't piece this together into a political philosophy until my first year of college when I discovered an-capism although I began my trek as a Michael Savage-ite to a less stringent conservative to a Cato Instituter.
As for how set I am in my beliefs, I'm pretty set as of right now, but I entertain non-libertarian arguments all the time although sometimes (as is natural I suppose) I often don't feel like taking the time to engage the other points of view and I tend to watch Mises videos and whatnot. Which I guess is kind of selective, but there's always a temptation to do some of that.
In terms of scientific outlook, I've been an Austrian since I was 17. I still haven't taken a definative stance on economics relating to artificial intelligence, but I haven't had much experience with AI yet (hopefully It'll be in my curriculum this the next year).
As far as socio-economic outlook, I became an anarcho-capitalist shortly after. I'm 20 now and I couldn't care less about social policy. As long as I can do what I want and take advantage of programs while avoiding costs I don't care if the government's robbing people blind or killing people I've never seen in places I've never heard of. Essentially I've become an egotist. Also, politics bores me to no end, although it is fun trolling activists.
I haven't had much experience with AI yet (hopefully It'll be in my curriculum this the next year)
Similar field here. I am currently working with neural-network-like models for language understanding.
I discovered the Austrian School of economics shortly after I turned 18 - and rather by accident. Within that year, I became convinced that its theory of the business cycle was fundamentally correct. That was the last intellectual obstacle in the way of me supporting completely free markets.
At that point, I was essentially a minarchist. It took years for me to finally come around to anarcho-capitalism.
I don't see being "stuck in one's ways" as necessarily bad, as you seem to imply. It depends on the correctness of one's ways.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
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