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Ask vs. Guess Culture

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Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#331

Post by LinXitoW »

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.

But most askers can still implement some level of guessing, and fall back to asking to clear up any misunderstandings. Guesser CANNOT. Asking is superior.

And it is guessing, because at some point it requires mind reading to accommodate. Again, most askers still understand, they are just sane enough to understand that mind reading is impossible.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#332

Post by jasondigitized »

retrac wrote: post #70
jzb wrote: post #12

"It’s rude to put someone in a position where they have to say no to you" I feel this in my bones. When I was a kid my dad went off on me after we visited someone's house and I saw cake on the counter and asked for a slice. That was just unacceptable. (Context: He was raised by people who lived through the depression. Food scarcity was a real thing in living memory.) Even though his reaction was way overboard, I stil…

That may work relatively well with consumables like food. But it extends in many directions. I have fans and a space heater and extra blankets and etc. All of them are available for a houseguest to use. Many of them are stored in the guest room. I've had "guess culture" people stay over. Really, in my mind they don't even need to ask. They're already welcome to take an extra blanket. But they won't even ask, and they…

Borrowing a fan purposed built for guests is not an imposition, and a imposition is what "ask" people have no problem with.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#333

Post by jasondigitized »

voxl wrote: post #132
jzb wrote: post #12

"It’s rude to put someone in a position where they have to say no to you" I feel this in my bones. When I was a kid my dad went off on me after we visited someone's house and I saw cake on the counter and asked for a slice. That was just unacceptable. (Context: He was raised by people who lived through the depression. Food scarcity was a real thing in living memory.) Even though his reaction was way overboard, I stil…

I suppose different people will have different tastes, but I will never agree that this is rude and that you should not ask. You should not be upset when declined, but that is another matter.

Therein lies the problem. "Ask" people force someone to say no and saying no is considered rude. "Guess" people are then forced to be rude when they don't want to be rude, and knowing this, are forced to be polite and give in to your demand. Obviously there is nothing sinister going on here, but unwittingly, "Ask" people are creating a uncomfortable situation for people who consider it rude to decline a request.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#334

Post by shanusmagnus »

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…

My hot take, that I eventually want to really dig into from a neuroscience perspective: trauma is almost entirely relative. It's phenomenological.

If you're an average American of today, you're living a life of comfort and abundance that could not have been imagined 100 years ago, and yet you'll have about the same trauma as did your equivalent back then, even though they would have dealt with things that would have killed you, figuratively or even literally.

Kind of related to Durkheim's "Society of Saints" idea [1].

This suggests a therapeutic vector: increase the variance in your own life. It probably won't be technically hard, though it would be psychologically very difficult. If the theory is right, many of your minor traumas should quickly dissolve.

It would take some amount of will to pull this off, of course. Though probably less suffering than the aggregated suffering conferred by the traumas.

[1] https://www.tutor2u.net/sociology/reference/durkheim-on-devi...

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#335

Post by pixl97 »

boppo1 wrote: post #253
munificent wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have had people (including the friend from the first paragraph) suggest I need to "work on my childhood trauma" but really and honestly I can't think of a single thing that was legitimately traumatic. Let me just copy/paste an older comment of mine: --- Imagine you've lived in the same house your entire life. There's a big couch taking up half the living room, but one of the legs is broken. When you were really l…

I understood the concept already, thanks. But thank you for providing readers an example of the kind of condescension I was describing.

And then others can read your own comment history about the 'minor' traumas and the impacts that has had on relationships in your own life.

At least from your writing I believe you're a very introspective person. The trouble with introspection is that it is an imperfect mirror. We tend to self find solutions for our problems, but we do so at the risk of completely missing the blind spots in our life.

Coming back at the previous person with the term condescending is concerning. At least my observation is you believe you have covered all of your bases, but this gets problematic in cases of omission. Yea, your parents did not hit you, but that does not mean they taught you how to have healthy relationships, for example, something that leads to a lifetime of trauma in some people due omissive ignorance.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#336

Post by solarmist »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #264
solarmist wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned this this year. I'm in my 40s.

I think a lot of people would benefit from getting some counceling in their earlier adult years, although on the other hand they may not be ready yet / not see any issues yet. I'm late 30's and same btw.

I can attest to that. I got an ADHD diagnosis 8 years ago and it wasn’t until last year that I realized it was cPTSD.

In fact, I was proud of being so “responsible” as a kid, not that I was neglected and parentified.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#337

Post by LinXitoW »

chasing wrote: post #100
v3gas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're clearly a Guess :)

I consider myself a staunch centrist on the "ask" vs. "guess" scale. :-) I ask all the time! And I'm totally comfortable with "no." But I try to consider the other person first because I think making unreasonable requests repeatedly , which is the subtext of their description of an "asker," blows social capital and just bugs people.

But that's ask culture in the end. Guess people can only guess, whereas ask can always guess, but then fallback to asking.

Guess also assumes a very similar shared context and understanding. This leads to xenophobia, because "those foreigners" seem so rude simply because they "guess" with a different contexts. Again, asking is superior.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#338

Post by jasondigitized »

njharman wrote: post #227
jzb wrote: post #12

"It’s rude to put someone in a position where they have to say no to you" I feel this in my bones. When I was a kid my dad went off on me after we visited someone's house and I saw cake on the counter and asked for a slice. That was just unacceptable. (Context: He was raised by people who lived through the depression. Food scarcity was a real thing in living memory.) Even though his reaction was way overboard, I stil…

I'm not spending game night constantly asking all my guests all the possible things (water, caffeine, booze, food, bathroom, chair, cushion, warmer, colder, more light, less light, music, different music, louder music, quieter music, pet my dog, etc, etc, fucking etc). If you want something, YOU ask for it, which is polite.

But.....if you have an incredibly expensive or special, unopened bottle of wine sitting off in a corner and your guest asks if he can open it.....that is grounds to be excommunicated off the earth. Don't do that, it's incredibly tacky, reeks of entitlement and puts your host in a awkward position.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#339

Post by harpiaharpyja »

I personally don't understand guess culture. It seems really broken.

It seems like it should be a communication nightmare. Humans are already predisposed to confuse reality with their own stories about reality, we shouldn't encourage doing that with other people and their thoughts. It's not real. The only way to know is to ask.

And when you get to the very bottom of it, withholding communication from someone because of how you think they might react is just a way of controlling them and their experience of life in a small way.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#340

Post by [deleted] »

reddit_clone wrote: post #164
sircastor wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be an obvious language barrier here, but the coupling of a positive with a negative response feels very odd to me in English. I'm reminded of the old song (it was used for an advertising jingle for a product or company I can't remember) "Yes, we have no bananas!" Adjacently, I really dislike the courtroom phrasing "Isn't it true?" that is sometimes depicted in legal dramas.

Indeed. >"Do you not have X?" In my head it sounds belligerent and accusatory. While the other form sounds polite. This negative phrasing to induce a positive response, may be a Japan only thing?

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