My model says that being naive is in *some* ways a defense but not others. A level 3+ action has (at least) two components. It has the information it reveals directly “I didn’t like your food.” It also has the motivation behind the action “I am deciding to tell you I didn’t like your food.”
There is a difference between (A) “I am deciding to go out of my way to tell you X”, (B) “I value doing Y more than I value not telling you X”, (C) “There was no way to avoid telling you X, so X” and (D) “I am naive and not aware that you will figure out or assume X from my actions.” And what matters for the reaction is which one it *looks* like you’re doing, to the other person.
So if GF thinks this is (D), she will still be mad that he insulted her cooking, but not mad that he intentionally insulted her cooking, which is worse - (A) is worse/a-bigger-deal than (B) is worse than (C or D).
I don’t think this is guess culture / ask culture, although I see how one would get that idea. Certainly they relate to insults differently, but in this case I think it works for either. You can definitely insult someone inside ask culture by asking, if asking reveals information—to not have this be true, asks would have to have the weird Bayesian immunity I talk about in the post, and they just don’t. Asks have a qualified “I’m not insulting you by claiming you couldn’t figure out what I wanted” immunity, but they don’t have an immunity on the “I want what I’m asking for” front.
It’s weird.
My model says that being naive is in *some* ways a defense but not others. A level 3+ action has (at least) two components. It has the information it reveals directly “I didn’t like your food.” It also has the motivation behind the action “I am deciding to tell you I didn’t like your food.”
There is a difference between (A) “I am deciding to go out of my way to tell you X”, (B) “I value doing Y more than I value not telling you X”, (C) “There was no way to avoid telling you X, so X” and (D) “I am naive and not aware that you will figure out or assume X from my actions.” And what matters for the reaction is which one it *looks* like you’re doing, to the other person.
So if GF thinks this is (D), she will still be mad that he insulted her cooking, but not mad that he intentionally insulted her cooking, which is worse - (A) is worse/a-bigger-deal than (B) is worse than (C or D).
I don’t think this is guess culture / ask culture, although I see how one would get that idea. Certainly they relate to insults differently, but in this case I think it works for either. You can definitely insult someone inside ask culture by asking, if asking reveals information—to not have this be true, asks would have to have the weird Bayesian immunity I talk about in the post, and they just don’t. Asks have a qualified “I’m not insulting you by claiming you couldn’t figure out what I wanted” immunity, but they don’t have an immunity on the “I want what I’m asking for” front.