It's based on the pervasiveness of some ideas. Some just shift the foundation of a person when they are accepted internally. If you can do that, you can steer anyone.

Less controversially, I think there's good in almost any idea that a speaker really believes in (ignoring bad faith actors) and if you can make people see, truly, your point of view and mesh it to theirs, you can both agree, even if you both abandon your original stance. So, nobody can really bring everyone 'to themselves' which is unstable as you say, but they can both find some average of their opinions that looks an awful lot like convincing people of a course of action or idea. The catch in my mind is that the words move you both, not just the listener. You can see it happen in real time in this thread.

Okay, what you're talking about now, sounds a lot more like a dialogue than before. Beforehand I thought you were talking about an X-words-long argument that (without interaction), if constructed towards one specific individual, could flip this specific individual with certainty. Like a key that can be used.

Maybe I lacked structure in my initial comment and you're referring to my statement about value in dialogs/ discussions that I briefly mentioned. That said, I totally agree with what you say here. There are numerous ways to get something valuable out of an interaction. The actually exchange of information can be just one part. Observing how you or the other reacts/ feels/ etc. to an impulse (in whatever form), can be eye-opening as well. And so much more. Human interaction is complicated, nevertheless, sometimes I just don't feel like it's worth the energy - ofc not our little chit chat here (;

This is similar to a goal I had during childhood (very naive obviously) - that I should try and write a heartfelt essay addressed to all the terrorists around the world. And if all the newspapers published my essay on the front page, all the terrorists would, on reading it, put down their weapons and simply live peacefully from then on, with tears in their eyes as they reflected on their wrongdoing. I was sure there could be a sequence of words that would capture the hearts and minds of all oppressors and dictators around the globe. I just had to figure out what should it be, and then get newspapers to print it.

This is very wholesome. I hope you were able to conserve and protect some of that thinking.