Honestly I think this is the point of confusion. This guy has somehow never heard the word used anywhere other than the widespread military usage and his own field. Weird that that’s the case, but given that starting point I don’t think it’s crazy for him to say “why are people in my field acting like we’ve fought in a war? Maybe we should chill and take ourselves less seriously”.
Obviously there’s the additional problems of not googling things before trying to make a public point, and apparently doubling down when corrected. But I see where a sufficiently sheltered person could get there at least.