I really wish that had gone a bit further. Alan Kay's ideas are always intriguing but, to me, it feels like he presents them too vaguely and people just end up arguing weather the thing they did based on his idea is inline with his real point. If he replies to those questions at all, it's with some more thought-provoking, but still vague, stuff. Maybe that's the point, keep people thinking and questioning without giving a definitive, authoritative answer?

Agreed. They approach things so differently, and I could watch them debate it all day. I never got a clear idea of how message passing isn’t just data, and I thought that “just data” via message passing is what separates Kay’s OO vision from what we call OO today. This discussion left me more confused, in a pleasant way.

My current opinion of Alan Kay’s commenting style is mostly that he’s been thinking about this stuff for decades and still does not have many solid answers, just that he thinks “mimicking biological systems” is a necessary part. That’s a gross oversimplification and not intended as a slight: robust interplanetary-scale communication is a hard problem!