You have no idea whether the author has "met enough variety of people." You have no idea if people are innately able to program, learn calculus, or "think in three dimensions" (btw - driving is a 2d problem). I don't. You don't. No one does. We do not have a framework for discussing the fundamental (genetic) basis of human intelligence. We do not understand even its most basic components. Some people seem to have "good memories" or be "fast at computation" but that's about all we can actually, honestly, meaningfully say. Culture is so ridiculously complicated and so powerful that it's impossible to impossible to distinguish between what is innate and what is imprinted. The fact that basically no one is able to predict the intellectual abilities of future humans is an indication of this (e.g. what would a mathematician from the 19th century say about the "fundamental" mathematical abilities of his fellow humans?).

The point of the article is that coding is in some sense a core/intrinsic skill. That anything you do is actually deeply tied to coding in the sense that "something you do" (technology, in the general sense) is equivalent to "algorithm." Weaving is coding. Playing a game is coding. Building a house is coding. Painting a picture is coding. Proving a theorem is coding (Curry-Howard Isomorphism). Sure, they're different, more intuitive, weird types of coding, but the fact that you can't see that they -are- coding implies a limitation on your ability to abstract the concept of "coding" sufficiently.

The fact is that coding is a deeply human activity, and that by understanding coding we are really understanding ourselves and the fundamental means by which we -collectively- understand reality. The fact is that we need some shared understanding of ourselves, of our logical facilities, of the basis of our ability to produce and thrive and know how to interact with the universe. Without a shared framework, communication is useless/impossible.