This is important. The benefit here isn't the language itself. It's the fact that you're pulling from an esoteric language. People should not overfit and feel that whichever language is achieving that effect today is special in this regard.

That was bullshit then and it's bullshit now but it sells very well to people who know a few programming languages (a lot of the people on this site)

He was right. Python programmers are still the most likely to prioritize getting things done quickly.

This is a pretty broad generalization!

The fastest iterating people engineers I’ve worked with often have a deep user focus rather than a language affiliation.

Eh.

I think the cultural context has changed.

In "python paradox", 'knows python' is an indication that the developer is interested in something technically interesting but otherwise impractical. Hence, it's a 'paradox' that you end up practically better off by selecting for something impractical.

These days, Python is surely a practical choice, so doesn't really resemble the "interested in something technically interesting but impractical".