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Here was his response: > 32 years ago I was a lost, scared, and vulnerable child. I won’t go into detail, but the reasons I left home at such a young age are u
by XiZhao 6y ago
Here was his response:
> 32 years ago I was a lost, scared, and vulnerable child. I won’t go into detail, but the reasons I left home at such a young age are unfortunately not unique; I suffered abuse in every form. I did terrible things and said despicable and hateful things, including to my own Jewish mother, that today I find indefensibly wrong, and feel extreme remorse for. I have spent most of my adult lifetime working to make amends for this shameful period in my life.
> In my teens, I dropped out of school, lived on the streets, ate out of dumpsters and raised money panhandling. I was desperate and afraid. I was taken in by skinhead gangs and white supremacist organizations. Over the course of a few years, I did many things as part of those groups that I am profoundly ashamed of and sorry about.
Eventually, I was able to get myself away from this world while serving in the United States Navy. This turned my life around. While serving my country, I worked with law enforcement agencies in hate group prosecutions and left this world behind.
> Since then, I have tried and failed to completely accept and come to terms with how I, a child of Jewish heritage, became part of such a hateful, racist group. One thing I have done, through therapy and outreach, I have learned to forgive that 15 year old boy who, despite the absence of ideological hate, was lured into a dark and evil world. For all of those I have hurt, and that this revelation will hurt, I’m sorry. No apology will undo what I have done.
> I have worked every day to be a responsible member of society. I’ve built companies, employed hundreds and have worked to treat everyone around me equally. In recent years, I’ve sought to create technologies that stop human suffering and save lives without violating privacy. I know that I will never be able to erase my past but I work hard every day to make up for mistakes. This is something I will never stop doing.
- lowdose 6y agoIt seems extreme but I think we should give everyone a chance to learn. He changed his opinions on a range of subjects. If everybody has to step down from a CEO position because of opinions and affiliations they had 30 years ago we will severely limit leadership options to a more narrow group of people than we should. I think zeitgeist and thereby society is moving quicker than we realize and thereby we shouldn't hold people accountable for every thought they had for an eternity. We should narrow it maybe down to a maximum of decade or so. The boom of data recording on individual level is otherwise going to hunt people down into infinity. Especially around the most controversial topics like sexism, racism and other bigotry people will make mistakes and what we are doing today is likely to be seen as immoral by a majority of the people living next century. In 1901 a woman was sentenced 30 days to jail because she smoked in public in New York City. In 1958 the government of Belgium decided to invite 500 people out of a colonial of Africa , to put these people on display next to the chimpanzees. Today both examples from last century would at least end in a career suicide.
- sudosysgen 6y agoI don't know, it's more complicated that this. He was a terrorist. Would you give a second chance to a terrorist? It is a bit more complicated than how he wrote it. Indeed, he was involved in a terrorist attack against a synagogue, as the getaway driver.
- lowdose 6y agoLife is complicated especially when people are traumatized. I don't know about his particular case. Interpret my comment more in general as a plea for the term we should hold people accountable for what is recorded in our digital memory than a plea for forgiveness of terrorist.
- artificial 6y agoThere are people in entertainment who were in gangs. Nelson Mandela was also a terrorist who got a second chance. This deeply gets into philosophy and I don't really have a good answer.
- sudosysgen 6y agoNelson Mandela had questionable means, but no one has a leg to stand on to critique his goal. As for people in gangs, there is a difference between a criminal and a Nazi terrorist. Let's not defeat by analogy here. He was not a guerilla fighter that assassinated people in order to stop an oppressive regime. He was not a run of the mill criminal. He was part of an operation to kill Jews, because they were Jews, in an attempt to bring upon genocide and misery. This is not a philosophical question; it is a question of experience. In different places of the world, your hear a very good argument that he's the only kind of criminal that deserves the death sentence, possibly the most heinous type of person imaginable.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- anxman 6y agoI love this trail of thinking though. Like, what if I told you that there are museums named after a violent domestic abuser? Should we judge Picasso for who he was, for his work, or for both?
- shaunxcode 6y agoI would suggest looking into restorative justice.