I like the explanation that “guess culture” is not the same thing as “plausible deniability” (although it might seem so from the perspective of someone used to “ask culture”), because people used to “guess culture” actually can read each other’s language quite clearly.
I also like the observation that if neither side wants to be a leader (if A+B < 100%), then the conversation may arms-race towards “guess culture”… and ultimately hit the limit of incomprehensibility.
Taking these two together, I guess it means that there are two different things that may both superficially seem like “guess culture”:
people who are native to the “guess culture”, expressing all their preferences using subtle words
people who navigated to “guess culture” territory as a consequence of not having strong preferences
The difference is that the latter will naturally revert to their native “ask culture” when someone starts having strong preferences again. The former will keep expressing their preferences mildly, and will get frustrated when you don’t get it.
And there is a possibility of misunderstanding about the rules of the game, when one person is a native to the “guess culture” and the other just doesn’t care, for now. They may seem to communicate well, until they suddenly don’t (because the other person finds a preference for something).
Also, I would expect the “ask culture” to be more convenient for people on the autistic spectrum. I guess the normies should in theory be good playing either game, but perhaps “guess culture” reduces conflict, because there is more space to escalate before things get ugly?
Thank you, this is great!
I like the explanation that “guess culture” is not the same thing as “plausible deniability” (although it might seem so from the perspective of someone used to “ask culture”), because people used to “guess culture” actually can read each other’s language quite clearly.
I also like the observation that if neither side wants to be a leader (if A+B < 100%), then the conversation may arms-race towards “guess culture”… and ultimately hit the limit of incomprehensibility.
Taking these two together, I guess it means that there are two different things that may both superficially seem like “guess culture”:
people who are native to the “guess culture”, expressing all their preferences using subtle words
people who navigated to “guess culture” territory as a consequence of not having strong preferences
The difference is that the latter will naturally revert to their native “ask culture” when someone starts having strong preferences again. The former will keep expressing their preferences mildly, and will get frustrated when you don’t get it.
And there is a possibility of misunderstanding about the rules of the game, when one person is a native to the “guess culture” and the other just doesn’t care, for now. They may seem to communicate well, until they suddenly don’t (because the other person finds a preference for something).
Also, I would expect the “ask culture” to be more convenient for people on the autistic spectrum. I guess the normies should in theory be good playing either game, but perhaps “guess culture” reduces conflict, because there is more space to escalate before things get ugly?