Conan O’Brien and On the latest episode of the talk show host’s podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, the pair agreed that the trend of vilifying people over past mistakes needs to end. “Empathy is a very important word and also forgiveness,” O’Brien said. “This whole concept of cancel culture is… We found that someone did something in 1979 that is now not appropriate. They’re dead to us.” Penn jumped in and agreed that the concept is “ludicrous.” O’Brien continued, “People can also be forgiven. If they even need forgiving. What happened to that? It feels very Soviet, kind of, sometimes.”