This is such a funny mantra. Okay learn how nuclear fission works. Or EUV lithography. Or power transmission across superconductors. All of these are extant, commercial, technologies (yes even the last one). Too much? How about something more pedestrian like overhead cams and electric fuel injection? Too far afield? Okay learn how DMA works on a GPU - not how to call `copy(host, device)` but what actually happens and more importantly why.
The truth is software developers learn APIs, not technologies (and not over breakfast either). Point being, it's not good to be haughty because if tomorrow you were out of a job and the only place hiring was the Ford motor plant I think you'd be just as fucked as the author of the post.