I don't think there's a world where Rich Hickey would have had it running on BEAM. From what I've read, a large part of why he originally chose the JVM is because companies he wrote software for would be okay with something that runs on the JVM, but not something like Common Lisp. And surely not BEAM.
At its core, Clojure attempts to be practical. Running on the JVM was a practical decision.
Oh, I understand the reasoning behind the choice. Doesn't change my mind in the slightest that BEAM would have been a better underlying VM for Clojure.
At its core, Clojure attempts to be practical. Running on the JVM was a practical decision.