Even if we assume that your point is true, Hickey wasn't comparing Clojure's type system specifically with only C++/Java. He was making a general point about st

Even if we assume that your point is true, Hickey wasn't comparing Clojure's type system specifically with only C++/Java. He was making a general point about static vs dynamic typing. He even mentioned Haskell and C++ in the same sentence to make a point about statically typed languages. When you are comparing the best of dynamic typing, you should compare that with the best of static typing else the competition is lopsided by specification. And it's not a fallback on "well, in Haskell". It's not like more "hip" languages can't adopt some of the best ideas from Haskell and OCaml to make their type systems better. Modern languages have already started doing this - Rust for example. It's about learning from research and making the consumer product better. It's a fact that Haskell/OCaml will never be on the top of the TIOBE index, but they can certainly influence those who are. Making ill-informed (I can only assume ignorance at best here) blanket statements like Hickey did in _this_ particular talk doesn't help the programming language community.