I believe in mechanical empathy. I think developers should - win performance is a concern - think about how their code ends up on the CPU, what ends up on the heap, how caches are used, and so on.
But for most Python developers, and Ruby developers, it's more important, in more use cases, to have clear and readable code that is easily maintainable.
I've met Sandi, I've gone through her Ruby books, I recommend her teaching and her books to others. I don't see the problem.
If you need ASM, use ASM. If you're on a team doing OOP, maybe learn about OOP.