The dichotomy breaks down a bit here, but the important property is that both parties maintain plausible deniability. An argument I’ve heard Steven Pinker make (but might not be originally his) is that you can avert awkwardness by avoiding the creation of shared knowledge, and that’s the reason the plausible deniability is important.
The dichotomy breaks down a bit here, but the important property is that both parties maintain plausible deniability.
Right. I mentioned this example partly because it’s a PUA technique in the category of “forced IOIs”, which is an awkward name for maintaining plausible deniability about whether a request has been made and whether it has been rejected, to avoid awkwardness and social status loss.
The dichotomy breaks down a bit here, but the important property is that both parties maintain plausible deniability. An argument I’ve heard Steven Pinker make (but might not be originally his) is that you can avert awkwardness by avoiding the creation of shared knowledge, and that’s the reason the plausible deniability is important.
Right. I mentioned this example partly because it’s a PUA technique in the category of “forced IOIs”, which is an awkward name for maintaining plausible deniability about whether a request has been made and whether it has been rejected, to avoid awkwardness and social status loss.