This is the very definition of the status quo bias.
I'd be curious to see some of these as well!
I dare you to try it out in the next 6 hours, no excuses. :)
Learning about Neurobiology. I found the more I know about how the brain works, the more cognitive science makes sense.
People assume memories are stored in one region of the brain. From the inside, it feels like all this knowledge is obviously coming from one place. Factual information about an elephant (weight, where it lives, etc) is related the mental image of an elephant (gray skin, has big ears and a trunk,) but brains store that information in completely different places.
Have you tried using the LessWrong Study Hall? They do pomodoros (25 minutes of work with 5 minutes break or 50 minutes work with 10 minutes break). YMMV, but I found that it helped motivate me, when I would otherwise be unmotivated. The five or ten minutes between pomodoros is fun, and while in a pomodoro, you are working with other people, so you have that sense of solidarity.
Drawing may improve visual memory (especially with things like drawing people's faces to help remember what they looked like), but I don't know if it will necessarily help someone develop a visual memory.
I can't focus with music on at all. I'm not sure if that's common or not. I know plenty of people who watch tv/listen to music while working, and they're fine.
Not exactly. The core idea remains the same, but the method in which he's getting there has, and the type of mind that he wants to create has changed.
Part of the problem is the many factors involved in the political issues. People explain things through their own specialty, but lack knowledge of other specialties.
Is it possible to get enough people interested in this to do something with it (like a website?)
It seems like it would take a herculean effort to get enough scientists interested and willing to participate. But then again, there may be many more scientists disillusioned with the academic journal system than I think.