> I am being anti-political-correctness because it's ruining written and spoken English.
You incessantly continue to miss the point. People have explained multiple times that this isn't about political correctness. You are seriously missing the point.
It doesn't matter what you think about whether it's politically correct or not to assume Satoshi's gender. And it doesn't matter what I think either. And it doesn't matter whether either of us even give a shit.
What matters is that it is objectively correct, colloquial, and precise to wield the singular `they` when discussing an unknown person. It doesn't matter whether they've picked Mary or Satoshi as their pseudonymous handle.
> we can still refer to the pseudonym construct as 'he' because the construct is masculine.
I'd love to be introduced to a group or style guide that has adopted this style. I have never encountered it. The closest I've encountered is just a default "use he/him because most people just assume male without really thinking about it when online". I would never, as a pedant, use a masculine pronoun to describe e.g. a forum user of unknown meatspace characteristics irrespective of the gender of their handle unless there was a pretext of role playing. If I'm Jisoo on waffles.fm I don't expect to be referred to as "she".
Even if you're correct (and I think you are) that it can be considered correct to use a gendered pronoun when a pseudonym is clearly masculine or feminine and you're strictly referring to the pseudonym, the author of the essay is simply making a style choice and I'm perplexed how you consider his correct usage of the english language (as it's been used since the 14th century) to be ruining the english language. EDIT: also I actually think the author is not referring to the "pseudonym construct" in the essay, I think the author is deliberately referring to the unknown entity that goes by satoshi rather than satoshi full stop (but I may be wrong).
Now if the author said something along the lines of "Satoshi and I's shared understanding of the cypherpunk ... ... " I'd pull out the pitchfork immediately.
You incessantly continue to miss the point. People have explained multiple times that this isn't about political correctness. You are seriously missing the point.
It doesn't matter what you think about whether it's politically correct or not to assume Satoshi's gender. And it doesn't matter what I think either. And it doesn't matter whether either of us even give a shit.
What matters is that it is objectively correct, colloquial, and precise to wield the singular `they` when discussing an unknown person. It doesn't matter whether they've picked Mary or Satoshi as their pseudonymous handle.
> we can still refer to the pseudonym construct as 'he' because the construct is masculine.
I'd love to be introduced to a group or style guide that has adopted this style. I have never encountered it. The closest I've encountered is just a default "use he/him because most people just assume male without really thinking about it when online". I would never, as a pedant, use a masculine pronoun to describe e.g. a forum user of unknown meatspace characteristics irrespective of the gender of their handle unless there was a pretext of role playing. If I'm Jisoo on waffles.fm I don't expect to be referred to as "she".
Even if you're correct (and I think you are) that it can be considered correct to use a gendered pronoun when a pseudonym is clearly masculine or feminine and you're strictly referring to the pseudonym, the author of the essay is simply making a style choice and I'm perplexed how you consider his correct usage of the english language (as it's been used since the 14th century) to be ruining the english language. EDIT: also I actually think the author is not referring to the "pseudonym construct" in the essay, I think the author is deliberately referring to the unknown entity that goes by satoshi rather than satoshi full stop (but I may be wrong).
Now if the author said something along the lines of "Satoshi and I's shared understanding of the cypherpunk ... ... " I'd pull out the pitchfork immediately.