And though the use of the male-pronoun-default is a longstanding tradition, referring to the generic platonic naturalist as "he" rubs me the wrong way.
Clearly using "ze" or something like that will make a better impression on most people. Right.
Overall, this seems likely to dissuade half of the target audience
But less than half of the actual audience the video is likely to get.
and subtly encourage some highly undesirable patterns in the remainder.
This is a weak effect. I'm not even sure it is measurable which means ignoring it carries small costs. Talking about this is thus just boring morality signalling that at least on gender topics eats up far to much time and brain CPU cycles on LessWrong. Your comment isn't by far the worst offender at this kind of utilitarian fail I consistently see. It is not even that bad at it since it hasn't launched drama. But I have a general policy of down voting all such comments to which I will adhere.
tl;dr Up voted because of you pointing out the religion straw man, down voted because of the useless "sexism" talk.
Talking about this is thus just boring morality signalling that at least on gender topics eats up far to much time and brain CPU cycles on LessWrong.
Maybe you're right, but I notice that almost all of the comments below the parent are below your comment, which strongly suggests that you bear some of the responsibility for eating CPU cycles here.
I've just launched WorldviewNaturalism.com, which is intended as a simple "landing page" to be used for introducing your friends to scientific naturalism. Many of the recommended readings linked there are written by LWers. Enjoy.
(This is a very old personal project on which I've spent a few hours per month, and it is not at all associated with the Singularity Institute or the Center for Applied Rationality.)