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> Every other major language besides Python allows the former

As noted in a reply to your other comment, this is not true -- Ruby has the equivalent of Python's GIL.

Only CRuby has a GIL. JRuby is totally viable for production use and doesn’t have a GIL.

And python also has Jython and other implementations that don't have the GIL. I don't understand what point is being made with that line of thinking?

Does anyone use Jython though? In my experience, only CPython and PyPy are commonly used, both of which have a GIL.