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Creutzer comments on Tell Culture - Less Wrong
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A lot of the comments are ignoring the fact that this game has multiple equilibria. Saying "humans evolved into X, so therefore there must be a logic to X" makes as much sense as saying "Americans drive on the right side of the road, so therefore there must be a logic to using the right side of the road."
Also, when traveling outside the monastery, our first priority should be to figure out how the other people drive.
If there are multiple equilibria, you should expect to see all of them in different cultures. The apparent tendency for general Guessiness is then left unexplained.
I think I'd expect to find Guess cultures in places and contexts which:
are homogeneous (so that inferential distance doesn't hamper guessing)
are rigid (implying stable roles and clear boundaries and expectations)
are hierarchical (anticipating needs places cognitive load on the guesser and offloads it from the guessee)
value apparent harmony (explicit refusal implies a conflict of needs)
value apparent confidence (asking implies uncertainty)
That should suggest reasons why we find Guessiness in a lot of contexts that're notable for it. Dating, for example, isn't especially homogeneous and doesn't always break down along hierarchical lines, but harmony and confidence are very important within it.
Conversely, I think I'd expect to find Ask cultures in contexts which:
are fluid or diverse
value apparent egalitarianism
value apparent ambition (explicit requests signal initiative)
involve very high downside risk (so you can't get away with the occasional cache miss)
Haven't thought much about Tell cultures yet.
Tell cultures happen when something (say, autism or a cultural disconnect) jams the implicit communication channel. Everyone involved has to agree to ignore appearance and implication, which is only a stable equilibrium as long as appearance and implication are mostly garbage data.
I'm not sure that's true. From the original LW post on ask vs. guess:
I've also heard that Russia is more ask-based, and the U.S. is somewhere in the middle with stereotypical differences between urban and rural environments.