I can understand why you find that offensive. But there are a lot of offensive things, or things that someone finds offensive, floating around—for this reason, we're all responsible for metabolizing those reactions in ourselves rather than venting them into the commons. It's the only way to prevent discussion quality from further declining.
Of course, you would have been welcome to post a thoughtful, neutral reply questioning whether medication is needed for that, and explaining why. In such a comment, it might be natural to mention that where you live, attitudes toward this are very different, etc. Although these topics are divisive and intense, there's no intrinsic reason why they need to become flamewars.
Re your second question, I don't think it's a problem for people to share their experiences and viewpoints, especially on issues that touch nearly everyone, and I don't think doing that really counts as "medical advice". There's no implicit claim to authority in an internet forum comment; on the contrary, readers all know to add an implicit "This is just an internet comment" disclaimer.
HN is basically an internet watercooler, a place for conversation, finding common ground, and so on. We trust readers to be smart enough to make up their own minds.
Perhaps change [1] clinical to chronic or need to may. It come off strongly than I intended.
> Depression ranges in seriousness from mild, temporary episodes of sadness to severe, persistent depression. Clinical depression is the more-severe form of depression, also known as major depression or major depressive disorder.
I certainly didn't mean to imply everyone with depression should default to any depression related medication.
