Fair point actually. It seems like he is putting a lot of overthought into it and using sources from way back might not actually help much. Fiction came a long way afterall.

reading/writing fiction and worldbuilding are, I think, very distinct activities, since worldbuilding is often non-narrative

Interesting thought. Couldnt worldbuilding set a visual narrative? A broken land with lots of graves of war like features could tell a story in itself.

Honestly, I think every author engages in some form of worldbuilding,

I would guess the same. It just has to be. There need to be some kind of space the story takes place in. Even if its not really represented by large words and description.

But it seems like Nerdwriter is too busy trying to scare us all about worldbuilding to present a more complex, complete picture of the impulse and execution.

I dont really understand. I think he is more talking about whats possible and the interesting concept of wanting to create a world where someone like you or me have impact on its surroundings which can be lackluster in the real world (for good reason). I would think he is only stating the the possibilities of an active worldbuilding act between writer and reader where both have some kind of ideas that can work itself into the story.

Interesting ideas nevertheless.

Edit: well fuck me this comment was made before you edited yours but reddit went down for me so i couldnt submit until now.

You do ask questions but is that really active? You still have to wait for the new book to get answers. I think the active worldbuilding part he is talking about would be that you can explain stuff yourself because the foundation was already build.