It seems to me that Tell culture is unstable: if there is no social cost for stating strong preferences, people will be incentivized to overstate their preferences, and it will de facto reduce to Ask culture.
This is false. This reduction only occurs if you also assume that the agents are also compelled to do some degree of sloppy utilitarian aggregation.
Stating strong preferences doesn't compel people to give you more stuff. It tells people that to whatever extent they wish to give you stuff, which kind of stuff you would prefer to have.
Consider Bob:
Bob could lie and say:
Consider Alice:
Since Bob has overstated Alice concludes that giving a foot massage and a beer will give Bob OVER 18,000! value while giving Bob a chocolate cake will give Bob a mere OVER 9,000! value.
If Bob had stated his preferences accurately then Alice would have given him the cake and he would have got his 9 value. He lied, so he got a mere 3 value. That was silly of him.
It isn't Tell Culture that makes Bob's communication devolve to Ask culture. Bob being bad at decision theory makes him devolve to Ask Culture. Alice should go hang out with Jack, who is less of an ineffectively-demanding-jackass.
Alice wishes to spend 5 on Bob (either in trade or out of altruism) and to do so in the most effective way.
This assumes that the amount of resource that Alice wants to spend on Bob is fixed. This is generally not the case.
As blacktrance noted, usually there is competition.
Even when there is no competition, Alice may be induced to spend more on Bob if he hides or misrepresents his true preferences: If Bob overstated, Alice might think she is making him a great favour, and hence she is building lots of social capital, when in fact she isn't.
There are al...
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.