I don't agree with the title - I've seen many engineers be rational and pragmatic about programming languages. I'm not entirely sure why the author decided to lead with such a charged headline.
We do pick tools in good part based on how we feel about them (especially engineers who believe themselves beings of pure rationality, tbh), and I think that's in fact okay; how we feel doesn't come from nowhere, it's informed by decades of experience often acquired the hard way. But it's still a squishy metric that can only be trusted to a point, and being aware of how this sort of decision making occurs, in yourself and in others, is highly valuable IMO.
PS I've seen PHP destroy billions in value in my career. It and Brainfuck are the only 2 languages you should never use to make software for other people. Every other language has a core use it is good at. JS in the browser, Python for scripting, Java when you need good observability and 3rd party libraries, etc...
And similarly, "Python for scripting" (Instagram?)... It's the effectiveness you achieve with it that is perfect for many new projects, based on language itself (dynamism, introspectiveness, readability...) and rich standard library and ecosystem.
I'd say you are not looking objectively at language choices despite the evidence being there in plain sight to counter the claims you are making.
Ummm... No, I think it was about forcing Perl on engineers who had been using PHP.
Management does need to care to ensure they hire people who will make the right choices (which is a careful balancing act of investment vs returns) if they don't trust themselves to do it.
It got people to click the link to their think piece.