But I like the general fallacy behind this that people fall for all the time: taking the past value of a variable as a complete predictor of its future value (applies to other stuff like investment returns e.g.)
If you're using a heuristic, it can be fine, but only if you also know that it's only a heuristic, instead of thinking that it's truth and lambasting anyone who suggests otherwise.
You should really look into how judges interpret laws (rules, basically). There are two schools I know of: purposivism and textualism (I agree with the latter and it doesn't take into account intentions. That's the basis of how the recent case Van Buren v US was decided, I would recommend reading it: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-783_k53l.pdf). But in both, you have things like canons of interpretation and background principles and so on. It's always awesome to see how people who have to deal with the problem have thought about it, because they have usually invested a lot of time into it and come up with insights. See also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_interpretation
Were those startups that went out of business did so because of their stacks/architecture, or are you confusing correlation with causation? And, there is a good reason people shy away from PHP, and it has nothing to do with trying to be "flashy." There should be a name for this kind of fallacy.
Do you have any evidence that "Most people who word things that way don't use the term "males" in a similar way". I think it's highly likely that you do not have enough (anecdotal) data to legitimately make a claim like that. At most you could make such a claim about "most people in my experience" but then, you wouldn't have monitored them for quite long either, just for an internet convo or so.