Whether you agree with any particular Controversial Political Figure or not, using one as an example will annoy about 50% of your audience (variable, of course, with your audience's current politicization and self-selection).
Using neutral examples will help keep the focus on your message rather than incidental politics.
Well, part of me agrees, but for argument purposes I'd say that some people will be annoyed because someone uses made up names of people who doesn't even exist. Also, I'm not sure if 50% people would be annoyed if OP would use "Justin Bieber" instead of Jordan P.
Also, taking this example further, even if we take an ideally altruistic scenario, where a person would walk on the sidewalk, and throw money away for free, so everyone could just come and pick it up, then there still would be some people that would be annoyed: 1) they didn't know about this fact at the same time as some other people, so they weren't able to come and pick up the money, 2) other people got more money than them, 3) they worked hard through the entire life and now people get money for free, 4) etc, etc.
So, everything can be argued like this, there will be people who will like something, and there will be people who will dislike the same thing. I think Bjarne Stroustrup has summed it up pretty accurately:
> There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.
That's why I've specifically asked about kirbysayshi's thought process (although I secretly suspect there wasn't any process at all).
Why? I'm conservative but I've taken tips from Obama and Bill Clinton. A good idea is a good idea. That Obama and Clinton are successful is all the more reason to pay attention when they give productivity advice, even though I disagree with several of their policies.
Many people find certain opinions of JP’s fall beyond the spectrum of reasonably debatable points of view, and cross the line into the unacceptable. You may disagree on whether JP is too extreme to be part of reasonable discourse, but everyone has a line somewhere. I would find it distracting if the article randomly showed a screenshot of quotes from Chairman Mao, and regardless of the rest of the article, it would unavoidably have some influence on my perception of the author. That’s an extreme example chosen because it is broadly relatable to most people on HN, but I’m sure there are far less controversial people than Mao that you would think are over the line of good taste for inclusion in such a blog post. It should be understandable that for some people JP is over their line.
And do you think it's rational that people judge the content based on some icons that often don't have anything to do with the content itself?
If someone would publish a whitepaper with a working cure for cancer, but would insert Stalin's photo into the paper, should the paper be automatically disqualified and the author exiled? ;)
Well, humans aren’t entirely rational ;) I wouldn’t say the paper be automatically disqualified and the author exiled, but I would question the author’s judgement.
Learning from your opposition is one thing. "Here is a look at how John Smith furthered his goals" is a fine article. An article about another topic with an "I <3 John Smith" banner is just going to annoy people who hate him, to no end; it's completely disconnected from the article and therefore shows poor judgement on the author's part.
I've heard this rationalization before but it falls down on closer examination. If propensity for outrage at "controversial figures" is asymmetrical, then factions that exaggerate outrage get to control the conversation.
Just because you disagree with someone's point of view (even strongly) doesn't mean they can't have admirable qualities. On the topic of Luhmann, perhaps if you were more versed in sociology literature you would have heard of him. I can't say I have, but I'm not a sociologist and am not particularly interested in the field.
