Never in all my years of message board surfing have I ever seen anybody say “My, God, you were right! What the hell was I thinking?” no matter how compelling the logical arguments against their position were. 
A wise person once said “you can never reason someone out of a position they were never reasoned into.”
My two cents:
Persuasion is always based on appeal to shared beliefs and values (whether to an established system of logic, the importance of human life, the value of justice, etc.). Hence, to persuade someone, the topic must be sufficiently removed from the core of beliefs such that there are more fundamental agreements that can be used as a basis of persuasion. If the proposition is too close to the core of a person’s beliefs, there are no fundamentally shared beliefs that can be appealed to. This is why fundamental value questions are often not modified through persuasion (instead, they are modified through life experience, paradigm shifts, etc.)
Nor have I, nor do I really expect to. The most you could reasonably expect to happen “instantaneously” is that someone may concede a minor side point, such as incorrect terminology.
I’m talking about a long-term revision of views. As one example, just read what Meatros wrote, if you haven’t already.
No, wait. I’ve thought it over. You were right after all. What was I thinking of?!
:smack:
Libertarian has done that quite a few times. His beliefs regarding atheists were reversed by Gaudere for example.
I’d be very interested in what changes you went through! 