Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask vs. Guess Culture

jeanhsu.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 493 posts

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#181

Post by drc500free »

I always enjoy the discussion around this concept.

I do agree that the Guess label is a little off. That's a bit like saying a quarterback is only "guessing" that their receiver will break off their option route where they are expecting. It's really only Guess culture to an outsider who doesn't know the expectations (as you see when a new WR keeps getting the read wrong, leading to turnovers).

And as others have said, everything is on a continuum. There are very few "ask" cultures where you can just ask someone if you can sleep with their wife and expect no negative repercussions at all. And I doubt that you can get a "no" from someone 25 requests in a row and have neither party question the relationship a little bit.

And there's some unspoken aspects to every request; if you ask someone if you can grab some food from the fridge and they say yes, even in an ask culture they probably have some assumption of how much food you are reasonably going to take. If they come back to an empty fridge, you won't assuage their anger by saying "well I asked and you said yes."

In a new situation, I try to interpret requests like an Asker and make requests like a Guesser (without being offended if I get a no), until there's some shared understanding. That's taken a lot of work, since I'm naturally a Guesser through-and-through.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#182

Post by RangerScience »

solarmist wrote: post #82

The most important thing I got from this was from the original Ask post forever ago. “Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people - ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you'll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you'll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (…

Seconding this. Anecdotally, the more multicultural a space is, the more it trends towards "ask".

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#183

Post by reddit_clone »

ativzzz wrote: post #71
flatline wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived this too. Likewise ask culture can only be healthy if there is not a power imbalance: is the asked party really free to say no? The title is catchy but I’m not sure how useful this dichotomy really is.

You can also be more empathetic with ask culture and soften or make the request more obvious to say no to. Instead of saying "can you do x" you can say "i know you're busy so no pressure whatsoever but if you're available can you do me out with x? feel free to say no my feelings won't be hurt" Yea it's a lot more words but the general gist is you ask with an additional explicit "out" for the other person so they can…

As a (suffering) guesser myself, when I have to ask something I always phrase it like 'would you be interested in doing this?' so that they can say 'no' without stress.

Instead of asking 'Would you do this for me? etc.' which I know would cause a mild-natured guesser stress.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#184

Post by ilikecakeandpie »

boppo1 wrote: post #104
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I’ve learned anything in my 20 year mental health journey, it’s that until you’ve addressed your childhood trauma, nothing you do will be a lasting fix for any interpersonal issues you may have.

>addressed your childhood trauma This is pretty frustrating as 90s-kid who had a Good Childhood™ and struggles with interpersonal issues. I have a close friend from childhood who also had quite a Good Childhood™ and he can't shut up about "trauma" and it seems like every two years he has this big epiphany about how he addressed some "trauma" he was previously repressing and how now that he's done so he's All Better N…

> and he can't shut up about "trauma"

The worst thing that's every happened to someone is still the worst thing that's ever happened to them. Though it might not be something like mental/physical abuse, it's still their bottom even if it pales in comparison to someone else's. Also, lots of families have secrets and can portray a healthy image when in reality we generally see people at their "best" in social settings. I think the key here is self-awareness without diminishment, which can be difficult.

Also, at least with my algorithms, there is just so much bombardment from social media about things like trauma, mental illness, and neurodivergence where one can get lost in what they're being presented and be convinced that just because they read the dictionary for fun when they were younger that they're neurodivergent instead of possibly just being a curious child. If one is in a vulnerable state or just worn down from seeing all this, it almost incites a FOMO response of "hey, I was traumatized too!"

I do think that normalizing and acting to remove the stigma from discussing these things is a net positive overall but it can be damaging for sure

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#185

Post by solarmist »

RangerScience wrote: post #182
solarmist wrote: post #82

The most important thing I got from this was from the original Ask post forever ago. “Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people - ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you'll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you'll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (…

Seconding this. Anecdotally, the more multicultural a space is, the more it trends towards "ask".

Through necessity.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#186

Post by ubermonkey »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #149
burlesona wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating to me, because I'm from the southern US and strongly align to "ask culture" and my wife is from the northwest and strongly aligns to "guess" culture. I wonder how much it's about individual family background and not strongly regional?

yeah im from the south and there is definitely a level of up-front-ness that i'm not sure the parent comment is talking about. like a level of exuberance and get-it-out-ness that often borders on belligerence "yall doin okay?"

Yeah, I'm a lifelong southerner (18 years in MS, 6 in AL, now 29 in Houston). We're pretty up front about what's going on across the board. If you come to a southerner's house, there's usually already hospitality happening -- but if you want something, ask! Just realize we'll say "no" if it's not something we're going to do.

This is jarring to people who cannot receive a no, or who cannot articulate one.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#187

Post by sethhochberg »

xeromal wrote: post #140
samus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed rural vs. urban is another divide across which such differences are observed. People from big metro areas are usually more blunt than in the surroundings. Probably because people there usually come from diverse backgrounds, but "guess" culture requires the opposite to work.

As someone who's lived in both environments, I think most urban people develop a shell from the constant interaction that's required in a city. People selling wares, hobos/homeless, and a stronger need to protect oneself. You have to be blunt or you'll never get anywhere. lol.

This is advice preached to people visiting NYC all the time.

The person on the corner asking “excuse me sir may I please ask you a question” almost certainly has ulterior motives. Locals in a busy neighborhood ignore a guy like that a few times a day.

But the person on the corner who says “hey which way is the 7 train?” with no preamble is gonna get good answers, despite being less traditionally polite.

Where there is constant stimulation, the cultural norms get a lot more direct

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#188

Post by ketzo »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #149
burlesona wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating to me, because I'm from the southern US and strongly align to "ask culture" and my wife is from the northwest and strongly aligns to "guess" culture. I wonder how much it's about individual family background and not strongly regional?

yeah im from the south and there is definitely a level of up-front-ness that i'm not sure the parent comment is talking about. like a level of exuberance and get-it-out-ness that often borders on belligerence "yall doin okay?"

This is counterintuitive, but in the framing of the article, I think that "y'all doin okay?" would actually be part of Guess culture, not Ask culture. It's just a very up-front manifestation of dealing with Guess culture, I think..? It's not Ask culture because the person who needs something is not doing the asking.

This is abstract, but stay with me here

I'm also Southern, and I think that the inclination towards that kind of belligerent helpfulness comes from trying to figure out what your guests want, and making sure they don't have to ask you for anything.

in my experience the response is "we're all good out here, but thank you!" -- which is classic Guess culture

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#189

Post by ubermonkey »

noahlt wrote: post #2

The "Ask vs Guess" name rhetorically frames it in favor of the Askers. Asking sounds reasonable, guessing does not! But really it's not about "Guessing", it's about understanding. It's about community, and relationship, and trust. What this culture really wants is for you to pay attention and understand the people around you, rather than treating everything as a transaction.

That framing is at least as bad as the framing you project on the Ask/Guess split.

Clearer communication is always better.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#190

Post by xeromal »

sethhochberg wrote: post #187
xeromal wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's lived in both environments, I think most urban people develop a shell from the constant interaction that's required in a city. People selling wares, hobos/homeless, and a stronger need to protect oneself. You have to be blunt or you'll never get anywhere. lol.

This is advice preached to people visiting NYC all the time. The person on the corner asking “excuse me sir may I please ask you a question” almost certainly has ulterior motives. Locals in a busy neighborhood ignore a guy like that a few times a day. But the person on the corner who says “hey which way is the 7 train?” with no preamble is gonna get good answers, despite being less traditionally polite. Where there i…

Yeah, on the other hand, I recently was looking for an old land cruiser and got in touch with a local guy on facebook. Knew I wanted it and sent him 1k to hold the car for me for a few days until I could rent a trailer. He did so and I picked up the suv without a hitch.

I'd never do this in Los Angeles where I live part time.

I context switch based on which home I'm at, North Georgia or Los Angeles.

Post reply on HN