There is some truth in OP: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3212479 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3212479 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR h

There is some truth in OP: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3212479 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3212479 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR Then Java was created as a way to waive C++ cumbersome dynamic dispatch, because high end hardware of that time could handle it performance wise. Then a huge number of scripting languages appeared basically saying: "let's do everything at runtime!". There is another trend where correctness is the driving factor (Haskell, Rust). Proving correctness on large programs tends to be CPU/memory intensive, so in a sense that trend is also enabled by hardware.