Are your co-workers the only people on the planet that have ever tried to shut down that kind of conversation?
No. This is a conversation, the person you replied to said something and that something meant a specific thing. Since I'm the person who said it, I know what that guy meant. I was talking about conversations I had in real life.
Even if I didn't mention that specifically or clearly enough, talking about a random thing never before brought up in the discussion is your leap.
Cannot conversations be expanded upon?
They sure can. But since it's a conversation between at least two people, those two (or more) people should be on board with the expansion. Just forcing it into a conversation and ignoring what the others are telling you, is not a good way to have a conversation for a myriad of reasons.
No need to be so literal, especially when I was responding generally, and trying to make you feel better.
Talking about something that doesn't make me feel bad in the first place (astroturfing in this case), and "fixing" it, has absolutely no chance of making me feel better. It's like putting a bandaid on my knee when it was my finger that was cut.
I'm aware of astroturfing, and can usually spot it in the wild. But online comments from other people hold much less weight for me than in person or at least personal conversations. So by default, astroturfing doesn't really affect me.