For sure. I think we're channeling similar sentiments. Obviously there is *some* amount of objectivity here. No one is going to look at a million lines of Brainfuck code and say "this is easy to grok". it's just that the problem is these objective truths make up a tiny fraction of the crap people debate when these topics come up.
And yes, the maximal familiarity is a huge aspect. Many years ago I got into an argument with a colleague regarding FP patterns. He contended that they were objectively harder to reason about and cited the difficulty of new hires in ramping up. I was contending that this is untrue, but rather those new hires had existed in a world where they didn't often encounter FP patterns. For practical purposes the end result is the same, I'll admit. But to your point: if we accept that the missing ingredient is familiarity vs it being objectively bad it changes how one might approach the problem.
And yes, the maximal familiarity is a huge aspect. Many years ago I got into an argument with a colleague regarding FP patterns. He contended that they were objectively harder to reason about and cited the difficulty of new hires in ramping up. I was contending that this is untrue, but rather those new hires had existed in a world where they didn't often encounter FP patterns. For practical purposes the end result is the same, I'll admit. But to your point: if we accept that the missing ingredient is familiarity vs it being objectively bad it changes how one might approach the problem.