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Comment by busterarm | Hacker News Reader

She also called her comments "deeply insensitive". How bent out of shape are you going to get over what a 17 year old says? "Sorry you're offended" is much closer to accurate. I'm nothing like 17 year old me and if you asked me to take present day responsibility for that person I would tell you to toss off.

How much did you do at 17 that you aren't proud of today?

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> How much did you do at 17 that you aren't proud of today?

Not that much. For sure I made some mistakes, as I continue to do, but I'd stand by what I did at 17. I didn't (for example) write down plainly racist statements and then publish them on the internet. I didn't do anything comparable to that.

What were y'all doing at 17?

> What were y'all doing at 17?

Mostly really awkward attempts at being sexually active. Surely some of it cancelable. Just like most other 17 year olds.

Do you believe racism is an incurable ill, or in any way related to ones lived experiences and education? I have met (and still know) plenty of people that are varying degrees of racist, and the majority of it involves some pretty fundamental ignorance. In some cases people are outright indoctrinated into racism. I have no idea if this particular person was desrving of cancellation or forgiveness, but I can personally imagine someone at 17 writing racist sentiments, and genuinely repenting and growing out of that. I can imagine someone at 25, or 35 doing the same. I can appreciate it is hard to imagine that a person can change their world view, yet it certainly happens all the time.

I agree with this but don't believe it relates to the grandparent's comment, which implied that we should accept shameful behaviour from 17 year olds because it is an innate part of being 17 years old. I object to that idea.

(Is suffering indoctrination shameful? And, as you say, that is not unique to 17 year olds.)

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