1) The quote gets repeated every time Zuckerberg is discussed. There's just nothing new or interesting about it.
2) How do you think you'd fare if you were held accountable - with or without the full context being understood - for every casual private utterance you made at the age of 19?
If you think you'd come out well, you'd have to be an extreme outlier, given that neuroscience tells us the parts of the brain that control rational decision-making don't fully develop until about age 25.
Criticise Zuckerberg and Facebook all you like, but let's do it based on current behaviour, not that of someone who was barely more than a child.
It doesn't have to be new, it doesn't have to be interesting, it has to be enough, in context of something that matters enough.
And it's not just any old random private utterance, either. Did he ever own up to it? If not, it's still relevant. We're not talking about something that someone since acknowledged and made right, but which is still brought up even though they totally changed.
> Criticise Zuckerberg and Facebook all you like, but let's do it based on current behaviour
Feel free to, it's not like there isn't plenty of material there. But don't say "let's X" because you can't make the case that someone "shouldn't not-X".
> the brain that control rational decision-making don't fully develop until about age 25
What does rational decision-making have to do with any of this? That might help someone who is a scumbag with not hiding it better, but the criticism has to to with empathy and moral development, which starts at early age. And "fully developed" is just a weasel word in this context either way, "sufficiently developed" I could see.
But if you seriously want to claim everybody has in their life said things of that caliber (rather than first generalizing it into "things we would be ashamed to repeat"), I for one would take you up on that in a heartbeat. I hated people who exploit the ignorance or stupidity of others since I can remember, since grade school at least. I still said nasty things during my life I would be ashamed to repeat, but never from a position of actually deceiving or exploiting someone, not to mention dozens or even hundreds of people. Either that's true for most people, then you're utterly wrong, or I'm an exception, then I should get a prize for being such an exceptionally decent person.
"Talking shit" about people is not the same as mocking them during, after and before you actually do victimize them, and forgiving people things they didn't even repent of isn't that noble either.
The giveaway here is that anyone who invokes this comment, only ever does so while determinedly extrapolating the worst-possible motives and character traits from it, rather than engaging in a nuanced, fair-minded discussion.
I can imagine there being quite an interesting discussion that could be had about a 19-year-old future tech billionaire making this comment, and what it says about their psychology at that time and in the time since, but I've not ever seen anyone raise it with the intention of having that kind of discussion.
It's only ever invoked as an attempted mic-drop, but due to being entirely repetitive and predictable, has no rhetorical impact at all.
> The giveaway here is that anyone who invokes this comment, only ever does so while determinedly extrapolating the worst-possible motives and character traits from it,
The giveaway is that you feel comfortable to say this when in this instance, the argument is basically "it shouldn't be surprising he talks down to users", while complaining about lack of nuance or fairness.
People who are invested in this issue could do with some soul-searching about their need to engage in what looks every bit like good old-fashioned scapegoating.
I get the temptation to trace the origin of much of the world's current mess to some douchey thing a 19-year-old said 15 years ago.
But over-simplifying complex problems down to a single external cause and pinning the blame for it all on some other person has a very long but not very distinguished history.
It only takes a little awareness of history and philosophy to realise what this is really all about.
Scapegoating in its literal form is described in the old testament. And the concept Jung described as the "shadow" 70+ years ago, goes back to ancient mythology.
Your desire to attack and sneer rather than reflect and learn is notable.
