I had a conversation amongst friends in a group chat the other day, and some how we came to discussing the consequences of idiotic statements people make before they're 18.
My suggestion was firmly that we should forgive anyone who sincerely apologise and no longer believe the terrible thing(s) they said. In-fact, society should extend them a full do-over.
What was interesting was many of my peers think that age isn't really the line in the sand and that we should also extend this to everyone, all the time, as soon as they change their mind.
Now, I'm generally pro-forgiveness, personal development and moving on etc. But I feel this proves too much.
If I as an adult, have spent years advocating foolish and harmful eg. anti-vax views, but yesterday realized I was mistaken, how should others react?
Sure, I think people should be happy to meet and work with me for the greater good, perhaps leveraging my change of heart to convince people to get vaccinated.
But surely, having been wrong until yesterday is a sign that my overall judgement is weaker than you otherwise would have thought, or perhaps that I'm not appropriately careful about forming views on important topics.
Being wrong about a vital issue isn't generally a legal matter but it seems fine for people to be less likely to employ me, or be my friend, or invite me over to dinner, if they think until yesterday I was recklessly harming others through foreseeably sloppy reasoning.
Of course, changing your mind and apologising all weaken that judgement, as does the subsequent passage of time.
I think the act of changing one's mind is sometimes actually a stronger signal of good judgment than just holding the right view in the first place, depending on how strongly social influences typically contribute to one's view on the topic and how much that person was previously immersed in a social or professional environment that reinforced the misguided view. This wouldn't hold as much weight if the person has a track record of changing their mind unreasonably frequently, but I don't think that's true of most people.