[Dwolb]

Off topic question: is there a word or phrase for this conversation?

Something to describe arguing about the issue at hand completely through the metaphor and not directly referring to the issue at hand.

[gxs]

The word is pretty much analogy and counter analogy.

See this wikipedia article that discusses it in the context of logic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_analogy

[luckydata]

"Hackernewsing"

[peterclary]

Darmoking?