Yes. That part should be taken with some caveats.

And unless you're born rich, you start your life with debt: You need some form of retirement money for the last 20 something years you might not be able to work anymore.

If you buy assets on a loan/mortgage/etc, it's more like you're materializing this debt early.

Yes. I wish my parents had been more nuanced in their advice about debt. Carrying a revolving balance is way different from borrowing to buy a home, for example.

I was proud to pay off my mortgage early, but missed out on nearly 20 years of tech-stock growth. That's a chasm rather than a nuance in retrospect, but there isn't a lot of nuance in aphorisms like "Avoid Debt Like the Plague."