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Comment by GistNoesis | Hacker News Reader

Often it's closely related to miscommunication between High-Context culture people and Low-Context culture people.

A people pleaser usually is from the high context, and implicitly by accepting to help there is an expectation that the person asking is at least just not merely exploiting them for personal gain and at least aiming to increase the collective value.

Once you have identified what type of culture someone tend to follow. It becomes easier to say no to them because you know what to expect. It also allows you to know when to say yes even when the presented deal doesn't seem immediately rewarding because it opens some new interesting paths often leading to hard to anticipate long-term win-win situations.

As a bonus, identifying their culture will allow you to communicate more effectively.

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What are "High-Context culture people and Low-Context culture people"?

Also, "Once you have identified what type of culture someone tend to follow" -- what are good ways to do that sooner rather than later?

Typical characteristics from the two types : https://www2.pacific.edu/sis/culture/pub/context_cultures_hi...

Often it's pretty straight forward when you ask yourself the question.

As all cultural phenomenon, there is a strong local component to it but there are still many variations : knowing where they are from, whether they grow up in big city or small rural areas, is often a good starting guess. But after a few sentences exchange showing how direct or considerate of your specificity they are, how they value your time, you usually know without doubt.

It's just about making sure you are in the right communication mode with the right person.

To bring it back to the article theme :

The way people hear a no is also pretty characteristic. So listening to their reaction when you are telling them no is also a pretty strong signal.

For example if you tell no without justification to someone from high context culture when he asked something (if he ask it probably means that from his point of view he is expecting a positive answer) he won't probably take it good. And you have a few second to come-up with a sensible reason if you don't want to ruin the relationship.

Whereas someone from low context culture is usually more direct and the no carries less weight to give or take, as in their eyes it means they will just ask to the next person.

Interesting table, the one you linked. I'm thinking people have traits from both contexts, and I suppose that for some, one context is more dominant

I'd want to split the table into more dimensions than just one

GP was not trying to be racist, such a concept does exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context_c...

Thanks for the link. I didn't infer racism, just never heard the term before.

What led you to the racist angle?

Because GP was discussing a socially sensitive topic, but the other person asked for an explanation about an easily googleable concept. This is intentional noodle-braining, explanation on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/ixp19i/did...

But why racism specifically?

One of my go-to examples of high-context is The Wire's "fuck" scene. Two professionals in perfect sync investigate a murder scene. The communications themselves are not very important because they are relying on a high level of context -- they already have familiarity with the case and with each other.

[nsfw] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lElf7D-An8

On the other side of the spectrum, think about any episode of CSI or NCIS where the characters narrate everything they do and think to each other. It's necessary exposition for the viewer, and perhaps in a real-life setting collaborating in this way keeps everybody on the same page. It isn't bad at all, it is just a lower context mode of communicating.

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