Lovely post. Related issues: a) whether people observe the reactions of others; b) whether people update their own actions and priors based on past experience. c) reciprocity / hypocrisy
Many do not observe / update reliably. Or they selective fail to in certain situations. If you default to a zero-echoes “ask what’s on your mind” approach, but observe the world and update based on past experience, and have intrusive thoughts that when you vocalize them offend people, you might only ask someone “why is your spouse so ugly?” the first time it occurs to you, and not every time you see them.
Children demonstrate a lot of zero-echoes interactions that are considered anti-social in adults because they are disruptive to everything else going on around them. (like asking “why” repeatedly until stopped, or asking “can I have a candy?” 50 times in rapid succession despite always getting the same answer) That’s not an ask vs guess question, it’s a matter of learning from past interactions and responding collegially to feedback.
In an interaction where everyone does update and attend to affects on others, it can be enough to respond with a few words only. “[Dis]Agreed; longer conversation to be had.” “I want to write about this some day.” “Interesting idea, not sure I buy it.” “You’ve posted this before.” “Thanks for feedback; have to think about this but don’t have bandwidth to respond.”
Lovely post. Related issues:
a) whether people observe the reactions of others;
b) whether people update their own actions and priors based on past experience.
c) reciprocity / hypocrisy
Many do not observe / update reliably. Or they selective fail to in certain situations.
If you default to a zero-echoes “ask what’s on your mind” approach, but observe the world and update based on past experience, and have intrusive thoughts that when you vocalize them offend people, you might only ask someone “why is your spouse so ugly?” the first time it occurs to you, and not every time you see them.
Children demonstrate a lot of zero-echoes interactions that are considered anti-social in adults because they are disruptive to everything else going on around them. (like asking “why” repeatedly until stopped, or asking “can I have a candy?” 50 times in rapid succession despite always getting the same answer) That’s not an ask vs guess question, it’s a matter of learning from past interactions and responding collegially to feedback.
In an interaction where everyone does update and attend to affects on others, it can be enough to respond with a few words only. “[Dis]Agreed; longer conversation to be had.” “I want to write about this some day.” “Interesting idea, not sure I buy it.” “You’ve posted this before.” “Thanks for feedback; have to think about this but don’t have bandwidth to respond.”