Tell culture seems pretty close to ask culture. I think guess culture is superior to both of them, even though guessing can go too far sometimes, obviously. (I should tell (!) you though that I am a guesser by inclination/personality so I might be doing motivated cognition).
In my view, the defences of both ask and tell culture are based on a defect picture of human cognition. You more or less always imply things by asking them or telling them things. The reason for this is that there are so many things you could ask and so many things you could tell so that by asking or telling someone something you are thereby implying that this is a reasonable thing to tell/ask. In many cases, it is not. Tellers/askers seem to think that we can somehow magically do away with those implications. The situations is analogous to those who think that we can define our words any way we like. As Yudkowsky pointed out in some post, in defining a word in a certain way, we are thereby implying that the definiens is important. These ideas are both old-style rationalist ideas. We ought to know by now that our minds don't function in that way but that we're always looking for implications from all kinds of actions.
My guess is that while many people would like to be able to ask others whatever they like or tell other whatever they like, they don't like when others do the same to them. But that's just a hunch.
It would seem to me that the guess vs ask distinction is pretty close to the previously discussed wait vs interrupt culture. In a wait culture people typically have to guess whether others think they've spoken for too long. Interrupters on the other hand tend to be more direct askers.
One reason to be suspicious of interrupt/ask cultures is that (I'm speculating here) countries with these cultures seem to be doing worse in other areas. Eg in Europe Northerners have a wait/guess culture and are doing better on all sorts of metrics than pushier Eastern and Southern Europeans. I think the common cause for this is that there is more of mutual trust and respect in Northern Europe, something that leads to more guessing/waiting but also to less corruption and all sorts of other positive effects.
I realize this last argument is not a knock-down argument for guess culture but prima facie it seems to me to have some force.
+1 for the hugeness-of-the-hypothesis/question/word-space argument.
Followup to: Ask and Guess
Ask culture: "I'll be in town this weekend for a business trip. Is it cool if I crash at your place?" Response: “Yes“ or “no”.
Guess culture: "Hey, great news! I'll be in town this weekend for a business trip!" Response: Infer that they might be telling you this because they want something from you, conclude that they might want a place to stay, and offer your hospitality only if you want to. Otherwise, pretend you didn’t infer that.
The two basic rules of Ask Culture: 1) Ask when you want something. 2) Interpret things as requests and feel free to say "no".
The two basic rules of Guess Culture: 1) Ask for things if, and *only* if, you're confident the person will say "yes". 2) Interpret requests as expectations of "yes", and, when possible, avoid saying "no".
Both approaches come with costs and benefits. In the end, I feel pretty strongly that Ask is superior.
But these are not the only two possibilities!
"I'll be in town this weekend for a business trip. I would like to stay at your place, since it would save me the cost of a hotel, plus I would enjoy seeing you and expect we’d have some fun. I'm looking for other options, though, and would rather stay elsewhere than inconvenience you." Response: “I think I need some space this weekend. But I’d love to get a beer or something while you’re in town!” or “You should totally stay with me. I’m looking forward to it.”
There is a third alternative, and I think it's probably what rationalist communities ought to strive for. I call it "Tell Culture".
The two basic rules of Tell Culture: 1) Tell the other person what's going on in your own mind whenever you suspect you'd both benefit from them knowing. (Do NOT assume others will accurately model your mind without your help, or that it will even occur to them to ask you questions to eliminate their ignorance.) 2) Interpret things people tell you as attempts to create common knowledge for shared benefit, rather than as requests or as presumptions of compliance.
Suppose you’re in a conversation that you’re finding aversive, and you can’t figure out why. Your goal is to procure a rain check.
Here are more examples from my own life:
The burden of honesty is even greater in Tell culture than in Ask culture. To a Guess culture person, I imagine much of the above sounds passive aggressive or manipulative, much worse than the rude bluntness of mere Ask. It’s because Guess people aren’t expecting relentless truth-telling, which is exactly what’s necessary here.
If you’re occasionally dishonest and tell people you want things you don't actually care about--like their comfort or convenience--they’ll learn not to trust you, and the inherent freedom of the system will be lost. They’ll learn that you only pretend to care about them to take advantage of their reciprocity instincts, when in fact you’ll count them as having defected if they respond by stating a preference for protecting their own interests.
Tell culture is cooperation with open source codes.
This kind of trust does not develop overnight. Here is the most useful Tell tactic I know of for developing that trust with a native Ask or Guess. It’s saved me sooooo much time and trouble, and I wish I’d thought of it earlier.
"I'm not asking because I expect you to say ‘yes’. I'm asking because I'm having trouble imagining the inside of your head, and I want to understand better. You are completely free to say ‘no’, or to tell me what you’re thinking right now, and I promise it will be fine." It is amazing how often people quickly stop looking shifty and say 'no' after this, or better yet begin to discuss further details.