Please don't post shallow dismissals on HN. We're aiming for a higher standard of discussion here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The analogy they weren't making: "This is life critical, just like Arch Linux"

The analogy they were making: "This is a commonly home-built and heavily customized hacker aircraft, just like Arch Linux is a commonly home-built and heavily customized hacker Linux distro"

Two things can be analogous in one aspect while being disanalogous in another aspect. That doesn't make the analogy invalid.

General aviation (and especially experimental light aircraft) is not a particularly safe hobby. This pilot literally put his life in the hands of a 3D printed part someone sold him at an airshow. Pilots can and do "brick" their planes as a result of "innovative" approaches to repairs, upgrades, and maintenance. Luckily, much of the time these errors are caught before the plane gets off the ground.

Clearly you have a boring life. Dial it up a bit!