That's not exclusive to hacker news in the least, I've seen it happen at about the same rate throughout communities regardless of how technology-centric they ar

That's not exclusive to hacker news in the least, I've seen it happen at about the same rate throughout communities regardless of how technology-centric they are. It seems that the inability (or unwillingness) to put away the reality of the analogy and only take it as a bridge towards the point the person is trying to make, is universal.