Imagine an engineer in any other field acting like this.

"I don't want to install air bags and these shiny safety gadgets into my cars. We have been shipping cars without them for years and it works for us and our customers."

The problem is that it doesn't actually work as well as you think, and you are putting people at risk without realizing it.

You're trying to install airbags on a motorcycle, though. The design of the vehicle/language is incompatible with airbags/lifetimes. So if you want airbags... don't use C++.

(Yes, I know about airbag vests. Let's analogize those with external static checkers.)

You are making a general statement about the distribution of general consumers of computer languages, complete with a long tail, and the commenter is explaining that he is an expert car driver, way out there on the long tail. This tyranny of the less capable mode is really grating, especially on a site named "Hacker News".

As usual, the answer is quite simple: "please use rust". We promise to never mention when we break out nasm.

Driver anecdote: I have antilock brakes on my Tundra, but they are annoyingly counterproductive in 4WD descending 6" or larger sandy rocky steps. Do antilock brakes work overall best for the less capable mode? Of course! Do they work best for me? No.