I think your comment about having read only one line of a story/article is one of the smarter comments about having read only one line of a story/article that I have ever read. Which is why I think it is safe to say that people who have only read the first line should refrain from making comments. You made a perfectly reasonable assumption given the first line, but even perfectly reasonable assumptions can be completely overturned a paragraph or two later. I think if someone is going to take the time to post, they should also take the time to read whatever they're going to post on.

This is a strange type of comment, which often appears on HN. "I didn't bother to read the article, but here's my meta objection to it anyway". If you didn't read it, you don't know what's in there. If you don't like something, skip or flag it. Please stop posting smug comments about where you stopped reading articles.

You may want to reconsider.

It is a short story narrated by a character named Ethel. Nothing to do with Richard except that he authored it.

Oh yeah? So I'm modding you down without reading your comment. Neener-neener.

One: Since you're responding to his comment, it seems likely that you did, in fact, read it. True, it could have been read to you, or you could perhaps have used a Braille reader, or maybe you were bitten by a radioactive spider and developed the ability to psychically know what people's HN comments say without reading them, but statistically speaking it's probably safe to assume none of those are true.

Two: Assuming you did downmod his comment without reading it, you're exhibiting arbitrary behavior in a community of mostly reasonable and logical people. Perhaps this isn't the best place for you.