I think analogies are really only useful for explaining the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar. This kind of bizzare analogy, explaining the familiar in terms of the unfamiliar, is only useful for amusement purposes.

-- George Weinberg commenting on Mencius Moldbug, “The magic of symmetric sovereignty”

(Not that I think that's a valid general principle, but I do feel that way about many of the thought experiments I see proposed on LW.)