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I understand the gist of the message. Grant is an engineer, and we relate to him in more ways than we do to a singer or a movie star. So a singer or a movie star's death might not have as big of an impact as someone who is "our own".

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Sure, the question is why one would feel the need to point that out and explicitly compare this death to others, other than to feel a bit of smug self-satisfaction. It kind of goes without saying that it will affect you more when someone you care about dies (whether you know them or not) than when someone you don't care about dies. For any given death, most people on earth are going to be in the latter camp, and in polite society those people keep their mouths shut out of respect to those in the former camp.

All the rhetoric about how artists (singers and actors) are "vapid" and the like is also pretty emblematic of the worst of "arrogant engineer" thinking.

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