The very next sentence in this response from Russ Cox is: "Or maybe all the 32-bit systems will be replaced by 64-bit ones.". So, they do not admit this is a serious problem that needs attention, it is not clear whether they will fix it, when they are going to fix and whether anyone cares about fixing it at all.
I couldn't find the adequate words to express this so far, but the reason I at all find this situation worth commenting on is that is reassembles to me a very common pattern of denial I observe among many professionals in various professions in cases where a problem appears that is very hard to tackle or even to analyse in the first place. Often a doctor who has troubles identifying a disease will tell you it's probably just something in your head, a programmer who has trouble reproducing a difficult bug will tell you it's you who probably did something wrong at some time, even a guy who I called to repair my washing machine that was stopping the washing at random told me to "keep it under observation" when he wasn't able to tell what's wrong. Many people simply do not want to put in the work needed to solve an unexpected and difficult problem, and thus, perhaps even subconsciously, try to handle it by pretending it doesn't exist. If you want to be a real professional and a leader in what you do, you can not behave like that, you can not repress a problem when someone reports one to you, you have to have the patience to examine the issue, the experience necessary to know when you can be certain that you have the complete picture of it, then sometimes the courage to admit there really is a problem and then finally you have to solve it, or people will not respect you.
I don't think Russ denied it was a problem, so I don't think this is a "pattern of denial". I think you're incorrectly interpreting that statement as his "fix" for this bug.
The fix is well-known (a precise GC), just implementing it hasn't happened yet.
I couldn't find the adequate words to express this so far, but the reason I at all find this situation worth commenting on is that is reassembles to me a very common pattern of denial I observe among many professionals in various professions in cases where a problem appears that is very hard to tackle or even to analyse in the first place. Often a doctor who has troubles identifying a disease will tell you it's probably just something in your head, a programmer who has trouble reproducing a difficult bug will tell you it's you who probably did something wrong at some time, even a guy who I called to repair my washing machine that was stopping the washing at random told me to "keep it under observation" when he wasn't able to tell what's wrong. Many people simply do not want to put in the work needed to solve an unexpected and difficult problem, and thus, perhaps even subconsciously, try to handle it by pretending it doesn't exist. If you want to be a real professional and a leader in what you do, you can not behave like that, you can not repress a problem when someone reports one to you, you have to have the patience to examine the issue, the experience necessary to know when you can be certain that you have the complete picture of it, then sometimes the courage to admit there really is a problem and then finally you have to solve it, or people will not respect you.