Often when I read my old posts, I think ‘that was dumb.’ . There are only two or three posts that really make me cringe.
I’m guilty of foot and mouth syndrome in my early posts.
The lively debate and desire to learn is unique to the SDMB. I jumped into the deep end of the pool too quickly. Made posts off the top of my head that weren’t defensible.
I hope my posts are improving and better structured.
I don’t know if I cringe. I’m not really into cringing.
I do see how some aspects of my personality and the way I express myself have changed. I don’t think I’ve ever been embarrassed by anything I’ve ever posted. I don’t find feeling that way particularly useful or helpful, but I also don’t think I’ve ever been deliberately hurtful to others. I’ve certainly posted dumb shit. But, whatevs.
I cringe at all my posts, even while writing them. Which is why I delete 97% of them before hitting submit. I am cringing as I type right now…
This. Doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes to become a cringey post
Sort of same and more a testament to my lack of growth: reading a zombie unawares I’ll read a post agreeing strongly with it to then realize I had written it. Not that it’s well written… but neither that it’s so cringy.
My self delusion is that I have been more open to changing my ideas than that.
A couple of years ago, I saw a thread whose title interested me, as it was something I felt strongly about. Turned out to be a zombie thread, in which I saw what I had written about 15-20 years earlier, and my reaction was that I would not have changed a single word.
For context, however, consider that Young Me was in his 40s, and Elder Me in my 60s, and those two guys were on similar levels of maturity. Much more so than someone in their teens and 30s.
Unfortunately, I cannot remember anything else about that thread.
Give it another 13 - 18 years… 
Nah. Sure, there’s stuff that I might have worded better, but I don’t think it’s particularly cringeworthy. My first posts were in this thread:
I think I laid out my position well and stand by what I said. I even performed a physical experiment demonstrating my claims. If anything, I wish I was able to do this more often.
I’ve considered abandoning my profile and starting a new one, because of some of the bigoted stuff I said back then. But then again, I think it is important to own and acknowledge your mistakes. This board has helped me to realise some of the nonsense I was thinking was actually nonsense.
Who hasn’t? In fact, I think it’s probably rare if you haven’t.
Back in January 2020 I made this post about the new virus in China
I think I may have underestimated a little.
Yeah. I once got called out for spelling “wiener” as “weiner”. Made me feel like such a weiner.
Yes. I’m a completely different person than I was when I discovered the Dope. I’ve ditched the evangelical Christianity of my upbringing in favor of agnosticism. I’m moved from far right to libertarian to left of Bernie Sanders.
I don’t cringe over posts I’ve made as much as I do over posts that were made under my user name.
Years back my brother and I owned a side by side together. His family lived on one side mine the other. There was an odd little room, the size of a small pantry, between them with two doors that connected the 2 units. In that room we kept a computer that was actually mine but we all used it. There were 2 doors on each side of the room. We could go into the room but not into each others unit if the door was locked.
My brother, 5 years my junior, posted some things, though not offensive, made it seem like I was 13 when in the third grade as the posts were on my account and involved a question about something when he was in 3rd grade in 1973.
But worse, my nephew posted some things that got me in a lot of trouble. I got hate emails for years afterward and even got attacked on other message boards years afterward. After that I always had to make sure I was completely signed out of the SDMB when I was finished.
I don’t know if “cringe” really conveys it, and anyway I get the feeling online that “cringe” has evolved in meaning in more recent times.
Ocassionally I do find a post where I’ll say “well, well… all full of confidence of what we were saying w/o having any idea if we could prove it right, weren’t we?” Pretty much what one would expect given the gains in wisdom and polish that are expected with time, to which you add new facts that are thrown at you only later.
And of course given a certain time I’ll run into one or another where it’s like “(snicker) hoo boy, try saying that out loud, THAT way, these days!” But hey, norms and mores and expectations have changed and that’s not just here but in the world, so that will happen and it’s nothing to knock yourself over.
Oh God yes. This board has seen me through divorce and this board has seen me go through my manic anti department medication (never again) stage.
I think it depends on how you mean “cringe”. I’ve written a lot of stuff that I no longer agree with, or that I think showed a lot of naiveté, perhaps a drunken post or fifty. Meh. Like you said, we all do. I don’t really “cringe” at it, though. It’s more of a, huh, I was a slightly different person then – pretty cool to see how I’ve changed. I wouldn’t make those statements now, but I see why I did then. Then again, like I said, it helps that I’ve never said (to my knowledge) anything so stupid or hurtful that I have regretted saying it. It’s mostly just “dumb youth” stuff. No need to cringe about that. Everybody does it.
I think I once predicted that Dooku would kill Padme in Episode III, and that would be what would cause Anakin to turn to the Dark Side. (I forgot that Anakin didn’t know that Luke was a twin.)