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

101–110 of 493 posts

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#101

Post by mannykannot »

smeej wrote: post #18
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.

Hmm. I think I've primarily experienced the really dark side of guess culture, so I appreciate your framing of it as a desire for understanding when it's in a healthy context. I've experienced it in the contexts of narcissism and borderline personality, where the underlying thought is, "I am so obviously the center of the world that anyone with half a brain who's paying a whit of attention should to intuit my needs w…

In this case, the unreasonable person does not understand the culture he is embedded in, and would not understand an 'ask' culture either, where refusal to accede to his wants is regarded as reasonable.

The difference between normal and pathological behavior in either culture lies in whether people treat others in the same way they would like to be treated themselves.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#102

Post by jzb »

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…

Well, exactly - it's about things like consumables where you're asking to take something. For example, "may I have a glass of water?" would have been fine with my dad. (And it was drummed into me it's rude not to offer somebody at least a glass of water when they're in your house!)

Basic comfort items where you're not using up someone's limited resources == no problem.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#103

Post by themodelplumber »

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…

That's a great example. Unfortunately it's also not super helpful to dichotomize the difference, because most people are a mix of both in different ways.

For example, under extreme stress or illness, a lot of "ask" people will turn into "guess what I want or life hates me" people.

And it's not exactly unheard of for guessers to turn into power-trippers under stress and become over-direct when just a little bit of directness is a better idea.

Sometimes guessers even use this entire us-them concept as a way to subtly preach to askers, but really it's a two-way street. If you've ever lived or worked under an unethical or abusive guesser, you may have developed a very strong sense of the hypocrisy of the "askers are blunt and mean" comparison which often comes out in discussions with guessers.

Fortunately though there is a lot of nuance to work with on both sides in most cases. (And again, dichotomizing this is not great in so many ways)

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#104

Post by boppo1 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #73
quacked wrote: post #7

I am from the northern US (Protestant Scandinavian/German) and my wife is from the southern US (Protestant English/German) [1]. In the first several years of our relationship, we had several big disputes about how to treat each other, and how to treat guests. After a while we realized that she had been brought up to feel extreme insecurity over responding to the needs of guests, and I had been brought up to be blithe…

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 Now™. His behavior and overall life outcomes do not have any correlation with these epiphanies. Both of our lives absolutely pale in comparison to the lives of average children in previous generations in terms of 'trauma'. Minimal bullying, no fights, always plenty of toys and food, loving parents, etc.

I know some people with real, legitimate trauma (verbal and physical abuse) and they said that visiting a therapist really helped them to feel a lot better. In such cases of legitimate trauma, I agree that one should do something about it if it's making you feel bad. However, many of those people were already. interpersonally excellent before and after 'addressing' their trauma.

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. I could take my worst experiences, which I have moved on from and don't feel any need[0] to think about, and inflate them, but I'm pretty sure that would be creating a new psychological problem.

[0]I don't feel any hesitance to thinking about them either. I can sit and ponder them for a whole afternoon if I like, without emotional fluctuation. They're just memories.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#105

Post by samus »

kdmccormick wrote: post #37
rconti wrote: post #11

> Western society is very much ask culture. I want to push back on this, but since I was raised in the US, I don't feel like I have a leg to stand on. Perhaps it's more ask culture than the Japanese, but I still feel like it's very heavily on the Guess side. This all resonates with me, though, because I haven't grown up saying "no". My parents didn't ask much of me, but it didn't cross my mind to say no to any reques…

To be completely anecdotal: I grew up, live, and work in northeastern US, which according to this comment section seems to be as ask-culture as it gets, but when I work with Europeans I feel like I'm the one bumbling around with assumptions and implicit context, whereas they are more comfortable plainly asking for what they need and politely saying no. (Or maybe it's function of who I work with from each continent? I…

As an American interacting with Europeans in the US, you are more in tune with the local culture than them. They are probably aware that things are different from what they are used to, thus Europeans (really, most outsiders) are more likely to be up front when communicating with Americans.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#106

Post by friend_and_foe »

I think this is a bunch of over complication to explain away spinelessness when faced with the prospect of telling someone "no." Say no to people, it's empowering!

There are cultural norms in places about courtesy, hospitality, when it's appropriate to ask for certain favors, but that's not what the article is about. It's about telling people no vs making excuses. It's about being afraid to say what's on your mind. There's no culture associated with that, only confidence, competence and bring the arbiter of your own life.

It's pretty simple: don't hit people up for money unless your absolutely have no choice, be good to guests you've invited into your home, and say no to things you don't want to do without making up excuses.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#107

Post by solarmist »

breischl wrote: post #58
mabbo wrote: post #36

> Deciding what to eat for dinner with guess-culture people isn’t as simple as asking people what they want to eat for dinner, because they will not tell you what they actually want to want to eat for dinner. This was nearly a deal-breaking problem early in my relationship with my wife. I am "ask", she is "guess". We just want to figure out what we're going to order for dinner, why on earth is this turning into a fig…

That solution is a bit like the game theory solution of "I cut, you choose". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_choose

Yup. It works well for both types of people as well.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#108

Post by johnnyjeans »

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.

Maybe "Inquire vs Infer" is better?

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#109

Post by nostrademons »

BoxFour wrote: post #95
nostrademons wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Going further with stereotypes, some people say west coast is guess, east is ask." My experience is the opposite. I grew up in New England, and it seemed like there were a large number of unspoken norms (in both business and personal culture) that were really hard to grok. Moving out to the Bay Area, people are refreshingly direct. "Want to come work for equity on my crypto startup?" "No, you're crazy." "Okay goodby…

Well, I'd suggest that: 1) A substantial number of individuals in the bay aren't originally from there. 2) Assuming the role of a startup founder inherently demands a familiarity with ask culture. One of the initial steps frequently involves requesting significant amounts of money from individuals, with minimal consequence to the borrower if it doesn't materialize to anything!

That's precisely what makes Western (and particularly American) culture an "ask" one, though. Ask cultures arise when you have a great diversity of individuals and can't make assumptions on their backgrounds, desires, or how they would interpret an interaction. Guess cultures arise when you have a long period of stability, and communities that form and persist over generations. When this happens, you can start to make consistent norms and then pass them down in childhood, so everyone in the community has a good sense of what's expected of them.

Bay Area startup culture is an extreme example of Bay Area culture in general, which is an extreme example of Western U.S. culture, which is an extreme example of American culture, which is an extreme example of general western European culture. But they're all marked by fluid, transient groupings of people that came from all over.

Post reply on HN