I don't think that argument holds. If you're going to pick anything in Tech to teach the masses, Python is a pretty good candidate.

There is no perfect solution, but most imperfect attempts are superior to doing nothing.

I'd argue it's a bad candidate because it doesn't run in a normal person computing environment. I can't write a Python application and give it to another normie and have them able to run it, it doesn't run on a Phone, it doesn't run on a web browser.

So it's teaching them a language they can't use to augment their work between or pass their work to other non-techies.

Yes, you can, actually.

Pyinstaller will produce PE, ELF, and Mach-O executables, and

Py2wasm will produce wasm modules that will run in just about any modern browser.

How is someone just learning coding expected to understand half the words you just typed.

Javascript addresses most of your concerns, if you also teach how to deploy it.

(I'm guessing that's what you were hinting at.)

I'm not sure that's what we're solving for. There is no silver bullet. No single language runs on every phone.

If we're teaching everyone some language, we could very much decide that this language ought to be installed in the "normal person computing environment".

I definitely don't want people to learn to write code from JavaScript as it has way too many issues to be deemed representative of the coding experience.

What normal person computing environment has tools to program? Only thing I can think of is spreadsheet functions.

Yes, you’re correct that spreadsheets are the only programming environment/language that successfully reached normal people.

Now imagine if we’d managed to do that with JS or Python instead.

Are grammar rules surrounding past participles and infinitives, or the history of the long-dead civilizations that were ultimately little more than footnotes throughout history really more important than basic digital literacy?

Right - if you see these things as useless trivia, why waste your time with them when you could be getting trained by your betters on the most profitable current form of ditch-digging?

Some people would argue that understanding ancient civilaztions and cultures is a worthy goal. I don't think it has to be an either/or thing.

Also digital literacy is a fantastic skill - I'm all for it. And I think that digital (and cultural) literacy leads me to wonder if AI is making the human experience better, or if it is primarily making corporations a lot of money to the detriment of the majority of people's lives.