Maybe I am misunderstanding what you wrote, but "state" in the context of functional programming refers to the state internal to the program, not the state external to the program. So whether the input data comes from the real world is orthogonal to the question of whether a program preserve state.
Interesting perspective. If I may ask, do you mind dropping 'root' privileges for a better chat / debate experience? That would probably help with your case.
FWIW I agree with that perspective and think it is a quite common one.