I'm speechless. Do you believe type checking doesn't catch bugs? Because that's what it sounds like you're implying.
>But if you want to declare one is fundamentally or empirically better, then you need to get a grip. We can all like different things, it's allowed.
This is a ridiculous argument. People make such declarations because they believe them to be true. You're basically saying, "You're insane if you disagree with me that one is not fundamentally better than the other."
>The one core thing I'd like to stress, however, is that TS is not JS. If you use TypeScript, you are not using JavaScript. They are cousins, sure, or maybe uncle and niece, but they are not the same.
I don't see why this would stop anyone from using TypeScript. Why should we care?
(Also: When people say 'TypeScript is just JavaScript,' it's not because they're crazy. It is just saying something else. TypeScript is a strict superset of JavaScript that is compatible and compiles down trivially, which is in contrast to CoffeeScript for example, which was previously popular. Nobody was ever claiming that TypeScript triple equals JavaScript.)
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You start off by implying that type-checking is ineffective ('[somehow think] this reduces bugs') then call for people to not engage in flame wars... what did you expect to happen?!