>I am certain that people who want to read an article with this title are convinced that life has dealt them an unfair hand, and are willing to ignore or dismiss every example to the contrary.

Wow, this is unrealistically antagonistic. I think you need some qualifiers somewhere in that assertion. Anybody who simply "wants to read an article with this title"? Every example to the contrary?

The person you're replying to did not say "anybody". They said "people". In conversational English, the phrasing you quoted is not equivalent to "literally every single person who wants to read this article".

Maybe stop assuming absolutism where most people would never intend it? Interpret posts with the most charitable interpretation possible given what's written? (Y'know, like the HN guidelines require of us in order to keep conversations civil?)

It's true, if you had only restated the facts it would not have been a lecture.

... which is... what they did.

> It's not really a "lecture" when I'm just re-stating the facts in the story, is it?

If that was indeed what you were doing, no. But that was not what you were doing.