alt Hacker NewsRather than harmless, what the lawnmower analogy achieves is to make him seem blameless. "How can you assign blame to a thing that's just doing what it's built to do without any intent?" It's important to push back against that. Intent isn't a necessary condition for something to be dangerous, and so it's not necessary to ask whether it is intentional or not. A rabid dog will be put down regardless of who is to blame for it.
I think the point of the lawnmower analogy is to subjectively characterize Larry Ellison and Oracle from the viewpoint of someone who has had the unfortunate experience of having to deal personally with either of them in some way. You feel powerless against the machine, as it were, and the best course of action is to keep yourself far from the blade.