Ok, then if not actually designed under the influence of LSD, then certainly under the influence of religious fanaticism.

The tired old "Perl was designed by a linguist" cliché is endlessly Parroted (pardon the pun!), but doesn't actually necessitate or imply good programming language design. But look at the actual factual source of that folklore -- it would be more accurate to say "Perl was designed by a wanna-be missionary", and that certainly shows ("Exegesis", "Apocalypse", "bless", etc):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall

>While in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, Wall and his wife were studying linguistics with the intention of finding an unwritten language, perhaps in Africa, and creating a writing system for it. They would then use this new writing system to translate various texts into the language, among them the Bible. Due to health reasons these plans were cancelled, and they remained in the United States, where Wall instead joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory after he finished graduate school. Wall is an active member of the New Life, Church of the Nazarene.

Going on a missionary expedition in Africa to invent and teach illiterate people of color a written language to read the Bible in certainly sounds to me more like religious and linguistic imperialism than a sound motivation for programming language design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_imperialism

>Linguistic imperialism or language imperialism is occasionally defined as "the transfer of a dominant language to other people". This language "transfer" (or rather unilateral imposition) comes about because of imperialism. The transfer is considered to be a sign of power; traditionally military power but also, in the modern world, economic power. Aspects of the dominant culture are usually transferred along with the language.

Translating CS literary classics like the "Pascal Users Manual and Report" and Anders Hejlsberg's "Turbo Pascal Reference Manual", or even textbooks about sustainable farming techniques, nutrition, medicine, sex ed, and birth control, into their invented written language would do more economic and life sustaining good for those poor Africans than translating the Bible.

kqr> "people with CS degrees adding things that sound cool"

People with CS degrees add cool things that are sound, not things that sound cool.

Do you really believe that programming languages should be intentionally designed to be MORE like religions, MORE imperialistic, MORE evangelical, instead of less?

Compare Larry Wall's contributions to this otherwise deep fascinating conversation about language design, versus the contributions of less religiously motivated, more scientifically trained programming language creators with CS degrees, like Guido van Rossum, James Gosling, and Anders Hejlsberg:

A Language Creators' Conversation: Guido van Rossum, James Gosling, Larry Wall & Anders Hejlsberg

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19568378

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csL8DLXGNlU&t=49m41s

James was literally taken aback by Larry's macho IDE shaming:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19568381

"I think IDEs make language developers lazy." -Larry Wall

"IDEs let me get a lot more done a lot faster. I mean I'm not -- I -- I -- I -- I -- I'm really not into proving my manhood. I'm into getting things done." -James Gosling