A large faction of engineers, especially software-type engineers, have these types of hobbies.
I’m sitting here right beside the heirloom quality (compared to most furniture) coffee table I made in my garage with my nearly complete wood shop.
I make stuff in two ways in my day job. I design something and someone else makes it, or it’s just some idea as software.
Engineers are a type. We’re just wired differently from most other people.
Pretty much all major books are published as audiobooks as well. Even ones that have computer code written in them, which is not something that you’d ever expect to have read out loud.
It used to be that books would be “narrated for the blind” where not a lot of attention would be put into the audio. Nowadays, there tends to be a lot more effort put into them. I suppose that’s because they don’t need to be packaged as 12 to 20 cassette tapes or CDs any longer.
There’s the added element that a narrator can ruin or improve things. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is a wonderful book, but the narrator displays an unprofessionally slim knowledge of physics.
Then there’s World War Z. I’m not sure that there’s a better way to tell that story than the audio book. It’s the exact interview style that the author intended.
Orson Scott Card really likes audio books, so the Ender’s Game series is really good.
Oh yeah, and you know the justification for indigenous peoples being granted their land back because their ancestors used to live there, and they were removed?
That’s the exact same situation for Israel. The Jews used to live in Israel until they were kicked out.
Let that complicate your morality.
Also please remember that Europe purchased nearly the entirety of products produced by slaves in the Americas.
If there were no European market there would have been little incentive for American slavery.
I guess the slave free northern states also purchased their fair share, but nothing compared to Europe.
Agreed.
I might also argue that those people are all still engineers.
Engineer just means “problem solver”. Everyone gets paid for solving problems.
The real question in my head is how far does this go?
Sometimes the problem is that these burgers need flipping. Protein disk translocation engineers? I’m cool with that.