This talk is about asm.js which is a precursor technology to wasm, parents logic seems to be "wasm is an improvement on asm.js". I have no idea if the kernel isolation benefits the garry bernhardt talk is about apply.

While the parent is does seem to be treading into Poe's law territory, it's not entirely correct to dismiss that talk's relationship to wasm based on the dates your quoting.

Bernhardt in the talk explicitly mentions asm.js which is the precursor to wasm (it's even mentioned in the wikipedia article you skimmed a bit too quickly). asm.js was released Feburary 2013.

I'm surprised HN has such a short memory, but the impetus for that talk was a clearly disturbing trend at the time implying that everything should be done in javascript. Node.js was gaining rapid popularity, people were discussing javascript as the new C for using as the language to write example code in, and while things like asm.js were exciting, they seemed to point towards the hilariously nightmarish future Bernhardt is discussing there.

asm.js was first mentioned in 2013. asm.js was eventually superseded by wasm and is pretty much the beginning of wasm as we know it. Didn't watch the talk, but could asm.js be the thing the presenter was talking about?

it post-dated and took inspiration from Mozilla's asm.js, which was highly influential on wasm.