Step one to solving a problem is often to find a technique by which time is no longer stacked against you. Then you can attack the other thing in peace.
You didn't do that, your solution was 'don't write software'.
If someone asks for tips on organizing their kitchen and without knowing anything more than that, you say 'make your kitchen smaller and don't use your kitchen' do you think that is reasonable advice?
Sure, if someone built tens of industrial kitchens every month for regular families and just in the middle of nowhere (which is what i see a lot of in software) and then asked "how can I reduce my kitchen expenses" I would suggest "how about going forward you make your kitchens smaller and don't build them at all where nobody uses them?"
You are answering a question that no one would ever ask and you can't answer it because you don't have any other information other than the actual question that was asked.
Just because you don't see how it's a good suggestion doesn't mean it's not.
@kqr, thank you for your insights. While it's not exactly relevant to my problem domain (self-driving cars - lots of essential complexity there!), it's still generally useful advice.
Software is expensive to write, but it's even more expensive to maintain. That's why my favorite projects are those that delete large amounts of now-useless code. Not writing it in the first place is an even better alternative.
If someone asks "how do I get to this place" with no other context and the advice is "stay home and do nothing" that doesn't seem patronizing to you?