You seem to favor human brain cycles over CPU cycles. Conversely, time spent on memory management and pointer arithmetic is time that could’ve been used to add value to the world.
I do agree that there is a point where the scale tips. I wonder where that is, and what kind of application we’re talking about then. Many applications are at their basic level old corner shop crud, really.
Do you feel the same way about (e.g.) modern mechanized farming compared to classic farming that used human labor (generally unfree and unpaid labor, such as serfs or slaves)?
"Efficiency" is not the only goal that matters.
Comparing manual labor to industrialized farming is comparing (paper) accounting books to programming.
Whether you add gps based differential seeding to just doing it by ‘feel’ but still with machines is the difference of programmer brain cycles. Efficiency is not all obviously and there are different efficiencies one can find relevant. Why is this controversial?
Your argument is that programmers should use less-convenient and more painful languages to save energy.
The argument that agriculture should be performed by unpaid peasants or slaves is exactly the same.
Edit: it doesn't actually matter if they are paid or not (although they generally weren't).
The history of human progress is pretty much defined by using energy to replace human scutwork.