“What you feel in the magnet is the same force that keeps my hand from going through the chair, so the question is why does it work at a human-scale distance? The answer is that in an iron magnet all the magnetic forces in each atom are aligned. An individual atoms‘ force is too small to be felt at distance, but the combined effect of all the atoms in a magnet is large enough.”
That wasn’t so hard.
Also if it's the same force and it is much stronger when aligned, why don't magnets pass through each other? The much stronger aligned magnetic force should easy overwhelm the weaker force that keeps my hand from going through the chair.
As for why two magnets don't pass through each other, as they come closer eventually the alignment breaks down because both poles exist for each atom and end up repelling each other.
Of course, Paul's exclusion principle does play a role, but as long as the two objects are rigid enough you can model this mostly well enough with a magnetic dipole at each atom.
Edit: I guess my point is just that being willing and able to communicate simply and effectively is not necessarily at odds with being a condescending prick.