This is definitely what I was thinking about when I started my comment. I torpedoed my own point with the comment about the model being "too useful". Your explanation is much better.
When I said "I can't stop," I was referring more to this tendency to borrow models to explain unrelated systems. It's just a thing my brain wants to do and I can't help it (and again, I seem to convince myself that it's somehow accurate or useful even if, rationally, I'm quite sure it's not).
Yup, unrelated things do indeed often look and behave in similar ways. Humans are just a little bit overdriven to find patterns and end up finding some that don’t exist. It’s a useful trait for finding difficult patterns and there’s probably a stable point to maximize benefits which lands on finding a few too many.
When I said "I can't stop," I was referring more to this tendency to borrow models to explain unrelated systems. It's just a thing my brain wants to do and I can't help it (and again, I seem to convince myself that it's somehow accurate or useful even if, rationally, I'm quite sure it's not).