but that is precisely my original argument. in the end everyone finds "simple" what they're accustomed to, and you end up with more-or-less the same amount of complexity overall, no matter the system used to express logical thoughts, if you let humans try to optimize it over decades (but systematically, for programming languages) or generations (but less systematically, for spoken languages).
I'm mostly programming in C++ and I find understanding what happens in some Python scripts much harder than some template metaprograms I've worked on for instance.
You're conflating different things now: simplicity vs familiarity.
If someone is already a C++ guru then writing something in C++ for them will be easier than learning Go. But that doesn't mean that Go is easier to learn than C++.
When talking about simplicity people generally compare all languages as if one has little or no familiarity with them. Otherwise it's not a fair comparison.
...and you asses something by comparison. Having different starting points isn't a comparison, it's a bias. I don't have an issue with people having a bias (we all have our own preferences, our own strengths and weaknesses, and stuff we just enjoy more than other stuff). But lets not pretend it's anything more than a bias if you're not willing to compare things from an even starting point.
All you need to do is look at how many, many more hours Japanese students have to put into studying kanji to know that your perspective isn't accurate. The basics of learning Japanese are much more difficult that a latin language. What is more, the complexity means that people are very prone to forget how to even write kanji. To the degree that is is often a game show topic.
I'm mostly programming in C++ and I find understanding what happens in some Python scripts much harder than some template metaprograms I've worked on for instance.