I always think that these "C is a high level language / virtual machine and it doesn't teach you how your computer works because your computer isn't a PDP-11" s

I always think that these "C is a high level language / virtual machine and it doesn't teach you how your computer works because your computer isn't a PDP-11" style takes are very silly. C is a high level language that maps very straightforwardly to what the hardware does and programming on a microcontroller without an OS let's you eliminate a ton of abstractions that otherwise take years to comprehend. If someone wants to understand what's going on "behind the scenes" then it's going to be very useful for the to know C before trying to learn how the Cpython interpretor or JVM work.