The question makes more sense if you additionally pose an alternative (i.e. change my position to Y). Given strictly like this, all I can really say is that I would change my position if you demonstrated to me that it was in my own or others' self-interest to behave differently?
Since we are talking about assessments and decisions about a course of action and not values, the question falls apart. I think it was intended to be a trick question calling you out as a hypocrite but from what I have read of your comments on HN your answer would run more like:
A: Examples of a better way to phrase the question.
A: That for some category or type of person the question won't make sense, in which case it's better to ask a different question--or perhaps not to engage in conversation.
You might start by asking for what evidence--experience, observations, or stories--have framed their approach before asking for them to speculate about new evidence that would cause them to change their decision.
I have used your approach and found it effective in dealing with managers: is there any new data or information we could gather that would affect your decision? If the answer is "no" then you know that you are dealing with a political situation (small "p" as in organizational politics) not a problem solving one.
Those are fair suggestions. I'm not typically inclined to "do the work for them" so-to-speak, by asking them what experiences & observations have framed their approach, because that's basically priming the person to have a particular response to the second question which might not be in alignment with their actual beliefs.
A lot of the time people don't have a good response to the second question because they have never actually even considered the possibility that they could ever hold the opposing view on something, or what holding that view would entail.
If there is a value implicit seeing to gather disconfirming evidence by asking the decision maker what would change their mind, it seems to me to be a commitment to the scientific method of allowing new data to overturn existing models and hypotheses.
My apologies if I imputed motives in your question that were not there.
I am curious: what would you do if you were facing a high stakes situation where another person's decision was going to have a material impact on your life? How would you go about trying to change their decision?
Sure, "commitment to the scientific method" is also a "value", if we want to be abstract like that.
Regarding your question: Depends on how much impact on my life it would have, and what exactly the decision is. I have no prepared strategies to change people's minds apart from presenting reasonable arguments and maybe slightly bullshitting my way through it at times. There was never a need for more than that.
In the extreme the response would be lies and even violence, if nothing else works, I suppose. Again, it depends on what the situation and "material impact" on my life is.
