The entire of the Middle East operates on a principle of magnanimous hospitality. The Arabs call this karam, for example, which is considered to even be a religious obligation.
So if you're a stranger passing through a town and chat with some locals, you can expect for someone to invite you for tea and maybe even dinner!
Do you take them up on the offer?
Most people in the West would ask themselves "do I have the time", but a middle easterner would think "do they have the time?" Remember, you as a guest are also magnanimously hospitable--in this case, the least possible burden. Unfortunately, the guest must navigate whether they are being considerate or insulting by refusing hospitality.
Now to address taarof specifically. Persian's have pathologized hosptiality to the point of psychosis. The behavior is often mechanically choreographed (e.g. you should refuse at least twice before accepting a cucumber.) In other cases, it's insane.
Story time:
My mom and aunt had not seen each other for 3 years and met for lunch at a cafe. They went back and forth over who would pay at the register until it erupted into a fight. They sat at separate tables for lunch.
A close family friend--with no provocation from my sister--offered to house her for a weekend she was visiting. My sister accepted. That friend later complained to my mother.
A friend of mine went to a mechanic who offered to fix a small issue for free. My friend knowing better paid him anyway, but the mechanic was still upset since he didn't pay enough!
Edit: Just to address some of the comments. Abroad, the degree of hospitality is warped for foreigners (for what I hope are obvious reasons). Middle easterners in the West are far more inclusive.
I married in to such a family. My solution was to just take people up on their offers until they learned not to offer things they did not really want to offer. It’s such a culturally time wasting practice that I did not want to accommodate it in the U.S.
From my perspective, even the US cultural norm is way too taarof. It's normal for Americans to offer things for politeness, with no intention to follow up and the interlocutor is also expected to understand the offer isn't genuine. So a phrase like "we should grab lunch" can be said without being an actual invitation for lunch. And then there's the whole aspect of avoiding criticism or saying no. "I don't think that's a good idea" in the US is more likely to mean "no, we're not doing that" than "I don't think that's a good idea so you need to convince me more if you want to do that".
As someone who also struggles to decode situations where people's actual, implicit meaning runs contrary to the explicit meaning of the words, American norms of indirectness are already a headache. Persian or Arab communication is much more indirect and that sounds like a nightmare to me.
Not about the Middle East specifically-but I think one advantage more traditional societies can potentially have compared to the secular Western mainstream, is clearer social roles and more explicit social scripts-now, that’s not necessarily true of all of them, but likely is true of some of them.
I know you meant this tongue-in-cheek, but thanks for saying it anyway for the replies it would eventually accumulate.
I think we have too many people self-diagnosing autism when what they're really experiencing is ignorance of irrational social norms that are more about fashion than emotional intelligence.
Of course an LLM would be bad at such a topic since these are largely unspoken rules designed to be a form of discrimination.
The self diagnosis of autism has also become an excuse/crutch for not participating in social norms.
To 95 percent of the people that eagerly inform me of their “autism” : you are belittling a debilitating condition that many people suffer from, and no, you are not autistic, you are inconsiderate and socially lazy.
You may be inconsiderate and socially lazy because it’s difficult to not be, but you could put in the effort to not be if you wanted to.
Yes, some people have more emotional/social intelligence than others. That doesn’t make you autistic, it just means you are kinda socially stupid and too lazy to do anything about it. Join the club, me too.
In general, anyone that has to tell you they are autistic isn’t. Autism is a pathology.
> To 95 percent of the people that eagerly inform me of their “autism” : you are belittling a debilitating condition that many people suffer from, and no, you are not autistic, you are inconsiderate and socially lazy.
> You may be inconsiderate and socially lazy because it’s difficult to not be, but you could put in the effort to not be if you wanted to.
You're describing masking, most autistic people learn to do this subconsciously as children because otherwise you'd be ostracized from your peer group. Because that means literal death in the pre-modern society, humans have a strong inate aversion to that.
This causes a lot of stress and often leads to a life time of anxiety and depression.
It's kinda disappointing to read someone advocating for this. I had been told my whole childhood life that I'm lazy. Once I became an adult and started treating my ADHD, I stopped being "lazy", I could finally do things that I wanted to do. It's wild how night and day it was. Now I'm the only person in my family who is always doing things, and I get to call everyone else lazy. But I don't, because I'm trying not to be an asshole.
You accuse and condemn people who don't conform to a rigid ruleset for interactions that don't make sense. But everyone else who rolled a 20 on the social lottery get a pass on treating people who don't like fuckwits? Make it make sense.
> Yes, some people have more emotional/social intelligence than others. That doesn’t make you autistic, it just means you are kinda socially stupid and too lazy to do anything about it. Join the club, me too.
Sorry you've been gaslit so completely. I hope eventually you figure out how to dig yourself out of that hole of ignorance. I suspect you've been called lazy because some things are hard for you. Hard things being hard doesn't make you lazy.
> In general, anyone that has to tell you they are autistic isn’t. Autism is a pathology.
Shallow, incorrect, and unhelpful. Many people have asthma, but run and win races. Their asthma might not be pathological, but to pretend like they don't have it, or shouldn't keep a rescue inhaler in case of emergency is kinda messed up.
People treating and taking care their health physical and mental, shouldn't have to perform their rock bottom for you, just for you to believe them. And it's fucked up that you're suggesting they should!
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the common use of “autism”?
I have two autistic brothers, and my whole extended family is “on the spectrum” in social terms, but it doesn’t reach the level of a pathological diagnosis for the rest of us.
It is my understanding that being autistic is when these traits reach a level where it causes significant obstacles or completely precludes normal behaviour and social interaction.
Otherwise , the same traits mean that I have to work harder to relate to people, and understand that many of my minor fixations are rational only to me.
It’s extra work that I don’t always do to relate to others in a way that is pleasing to them, and some people are offended if I don’t try.
That’s on me, it’s a choice I make. I know that it’s harder for me than for some people for whom social grace comes naturally, but there are many things that are easier for me than for most people, and I can do a lot of things easily that most people struggle with. I’m happy with the bargain.
By nature, I’m socially astigmatic, sometimes asocial, and not very sensitive. I can overcome these tendencies if I work at it. I don’t always choose to. That doesn’t make me autistic.
My contention is that while neurodivergence is absolutely real, “autism” is a medical diagnosis, not a personality trait. I find everyone jumping on the bandwagon of “autism” for their deviation from the social norm minimises the very real fact that actual autism is a horrific, life destroying condition for many people, and is a genuine disability and not a cute / annoying personality quirk.
It’s also not an excuse for social laziness. If you are going to be socially lazy, even if it’s because it’s taxing not to be, own your decision. Otherwise you’re just surrendering your will and pawning off the guilt to disabled people. Seems like a shitty thing to do.
> Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the common use of “autism”?
> I have two autistic brothers, and my whole extended family is “on the spectrum” in social terms, but it doesn’t reach the level of a pathological diagnosis for the rest of us.
Yes, the common social use, and it's currently accepted medical definition and description as well. You are said to have the condition if it interferes with your tasks of daily life. If your inability to read and interpret social cues has a negative impact. That's autism, austism spectrum disorder is used because previously Asperger's used to be a separate diagnosis, but it's the same condition with multiple levels of severity. Someone with mild asthma, is still an asthmatic, someone with mild austism is still autistic, something with a below the knee amputation is still an amputee. just because they can win a race carrying a rescue inhaler, use intentional and conscious deliberate logic bosed effort to read facial expressions and respond to social cues, or walk with prosthetic that appears normal. Doesn't change that doing so is uncommonly difficult, and worthy of consideration.
> It is my understanding that being autistic is when these traits reach a level where it causes significant obstacles or completely precludes normal behaviour and social interaction.
Mild impairment is still worthy of treatment and dignity. Severe impairment where even with treatment the symptoms are still noticeable and negatively impacts life, is when it becomes pathological.
I have a headache but it goes away and doesn't interfere with my life when I take Advil. Still a headache. I have a headache, and no matter what I do, no matter how many drugs I take, it's still unbearable and I can't function normally with my headache. Still a headache, but that one is pathological. They are both headaches.
> Otherwise , the same traits mean that I have to work harder to relate to people, and understand that many of my minor fixations are rational only to me.
I mean, yeah? You were born wearing an extra weight vest, and have to run a race that you didn't set the (societal) rules for. And you not only have decided to tolerate wearing the extra weight vest, you're willing to blame yourself for it. And you're advocating that everyone else born with the vest should just accept the same.
Someone who has never tried to run wearing a weight vest has no idea how much harder it is. So they wrongly assume it's exactly the same as wearing an extra shirt or something.
> It’s extra work that I don’t always do to relate to others in a way that is pleasing to them, and some people are offended if I don’t try.
> That’s on me, it’s a choice I make.
There's a reason the term is always "take offense". While they're similar, offence and insult are different where you don't have to choose to be insulted. You do have to choose to be offended. (A habitual choice is still a choice)
Why are you willing taking the blame for someone else choosing to become offended over some ritual that itself makes no sense? One they can never explain above, "that's just what everyone does"? Everyone used to shit in a pot Karen, but thankfully we have indoor plumbing now.
It's their fault if they're offended, it might be your fault if they're insulted. But only one of them is worth spending the extra time on preventing. You're wearing a weight vest, and getting yelled at for not sprinting over the finish line. And you're say/advocating, yes that's the way everyone's life should be.
I disagree, the people wearing a weight vest should be praised for crossing the finish line, because like I said, they didn't set the rules but are still gladly playing the game where they have a disadvantage, one where most people assume they don't.
> I know that it’s harder for me than for some people for whom social grace comes naturally, but there are many things that are easier for me than for most people, and I can do a lot of things easily that most people struggle with. I’m happy with the bargain.
I'm also ecstaticly happy about the bargain. But I don't blame people for being stupid. I'm patient with them when they stumble and trip on 'trivial' logical problems. Do you mock people, and accuse them of just not trying hard enough when they make a small logical mistake/error? If someone complains about a long day of exhausting mental effort, do you try to be sympathetic, and suggest relaxing with something fun? Or do you accuse them of just being lazy, they could do it without being tired if they want! And everyone knows, humans love feeling exhausted all the time, being exhausted all the time is totally not soul crushing! /s
> By nature, I’m socially astigmatic, sometimes asocial, and not very sensitive. I can overcome these tendencies if I work at it. I don’t always choose to. That doesn’t make me autistic.
um... the need to expend an above normal amount of effort in social interactions is kinda the definition of autism. There a meme I love.
Test: Do you have a problem wearing socks?
Autistic person: No, of course I don't have a problem wearing socks, for you see, I have invented this 27 step process that allows me to put them on and appear like I can enjoy wearing socks! Thus I don't have a problem wearing socks!
Autistic people see no problem with making that conclusion, but it's pretty obvious that they definitely have a problem with socks.
> My contention is that while neurodivergence is absolutely real, “autism” is a medical diagnosis, not a personality trait. I find everyone jumping on the bandwagon of “autism” for their deviation from the social norm minimises the very real fact that actual autism is a horrific, life destroying condition for many people, and is a genuine disability and not a cute / annoying personality quirk.
ok RFK Jr...
but counter point: just because a lot of people who have mild to very mild symptoms of autism, and have found value in the treatments and solutions for the symptoms, are now willing to talk about it, and them. And are willing to attempt to normalize and build acceptance and understanding around the difficulties. Does not mean that they are trying to minimize the difficulty of people with severe autism. Black and white thinking is a symptom of autism, but both things can be true. A reasonable person can say, mild austism is real and deserves extra support understanding and compassion, and severe autism can be a horrific condition. But they are plenty of people who wouldn't have a horrific experience, if the society they lived within was willing to help them a bit with the things that are hard, even if that bit is just a bit of patience and understanding. Your rigid black and white, horrific or not-autism definition is not just wrong, but worse for everyone.
It's possible to say, it's hard for me to run this race in this 10kg weight vest, I could use some help and some patience. While also saying, we should do more for the guy behind me because his weight vest is 89kg, and he can barely crawl but I'm not willing to abandon him!
> It’s also not an excuse for social laziness. If you are going to be socially lazy, even if it’s because it’s taxing not to be, own your decision. Otherwise you’re just surrendering your will and pawning off the guilt to disabled people. Seems like a shitty thing to do.
I don't really understand this, how does my unwillingness to constantly exhaust myself playing games that even the people who are good at the game admit has no real reason. Pass off the guilt to disabled people? And why should I feel guilty? That's stupid, I'm not going to feel guilty over forgetting rules that, make no sense, I never agreed to, and make my life harder.
I would feel guilty if I made a mistake, but it's not a mistake to expect and demand fair and equitable treatment. I will play the social games literally everyone admits are kinda stupid, exactly as many times as everyone else agrees to be patient and understanding when I forget they exist. But normally autistic people are the only people who have to all the extra work, neurotypical people never feel guilty when they choose to take offense over an unintentional misunderstanding they created. So I choose to follow their lead and feel guilty the exact same amount.
For the record I think guilt is stupid here, compassion, understanding and patience is what we all should be striving for.
Maddeningly accurate. Taarof can demonstrate a mastery of social intelligence, like the Japanese tea ceremony writ large in society, and is a good goalpost for AGI.
Not one month ago, as an admission of my own clumsy slight, I had remarked to a senior of higher status, that Chatgpt could just grasp Taarof.
Formalized politeness is also a cover. I remember a senior military officer deployed to Afghanistan. On week one he met with all the local leaders, drinking tea in countless houses. But by week two many of those same leaders were shooting at his people. The officer didn't understand that when he was new he was protected as a "guest" but that enforced politeness was never going to be permanent. Crossroad countries like Afghanistan/Iran have long support traders moving through and have cultures to support such travelers. But as soon as one is longer moving through, one shifts from honored guest to despised invader.
Many westerners in places like Japan speak of extreme politeness early on, but radical changes once you stay long enough to no longer be a guest in an area. Then the knives come out. Want to rent an expensive apartment in Tokyo as an english teacher? Cool. Hoops to jump but it can be done. Want to buy one of those cheap houses in rural Japan? Heck no.
the cheap house thing has nothing to do with if you’re foreign and everything to do with a bank not wanting to lend money for something there’s no market for.
you can easily buy these homes with cash. i know because i have a ton of friends that have done exactly this.
if you want a cheap house in a good market like tokyo, osaka or fukoaka, then you can do so through a bank via the normal routes
I can well believe! My Persian friend stopped attending a longstanding study group of the Book of Kings because it went from being quite American in culture to full-on taarof, and they complained that only 25% as much was actually being covered because of all the enforced civility.
I noticed something similar with a Taiwanese family I was close to for awhile. It was customary to fight over any bill when sharing a meal. They would be quietly upset if someone actually took them up on their offer to pay without attempting to try to pay for the whole bill themselves a few times.
I know my (first generation American) father and his siblings would do the same, but only ever with each other, and it had the feel of an old joke.
Taarof definitely sounds like this taken several steps further- and sounds utterly exhausting to my emotionally stunted brain.
Buddy, people are on their edge now in the "middle east" (whatever that means) and they might not be that hospitable all the time. Also, big cities usually don't have this kind of treatment. Don't pass to foreigners these pink views.
They are absolutely this hospitable to each other all the time.
Willingness to be hospitable to foreigners obviously depends on war. But I'm sure Iran would love to have Americans over for tea as a hostages anyway. ;)
It may be quite dangerous if we train LLMs on Taarof and Ketman... especially considering... what may arise. The masterful art of deception, surpassed perhaps only by the russianes
Arthur de Gobineau, Trois ans en Asie (3 years in asia) 1859:
“There is in Persia a word of which Europeans have no idea, and of which it is difficult even to give them a translation: this word is ketmân. It means the dissimulation of one’s thoughts, the concealment of one’s opinions, the careful hiding of what one truly believes or feels.
It is not considered a shame, still less a crime; it is, on the contrary, a virtue, a duty, and a necessity, imposed on everyone by the conditions of life. To practise ketmân is not merely permitted, it is commanded.
It consists in never allowing oneself to appear as one is, but in always showing oneself otherwise; it is the art of presenting to each person the aspect that will please him most, of adopting his ideas, his tastes, his language, while inwardly remaining quite different.
This perpetual exercise of disguise is carried out with a marvellous ease, and with a kind of pleasure in tricking others, which the Persians feel very keenly. They take delight in this ingenious hypocrisy; it is a game, a triumph of subtlety, in which the winner is the one who has best succeeded in hiding the truth.”
Setting aside the obvious reverence for the father of the "Aryan master race" concept (Seriously, just pull up this guys Wikipedia -- first paragraph).
Such a critique of Persian culture without any context is unjust. For nearly a whole millennia, the Persians have endured a never ending parade of invasion, destruction, and conquest. While most are aware of the notable events, i.e.
- Rashidun Caliphate (636)
- Mongols (1219)
- Timurids (1370)
What is less known is the centuries of endemic violence in the border regions, and the relentless assault on the Persian way of life and culture itself (including the centuries long conversion process to Islam). Yes, although there are brief periods of peace, e.g. under the Safavids, at this point Iran is settling in for a long period of population collapse, famine, and economic depression.
In such a setting, I suppose it might make sense for a culture to develop such defense mechanisms for survival.
On the bright side I suppose, these conditions also gives rise to one of the most influential literary and poetic traditions in world history -- i.e. Rumi, Hafez, Ferdowsi, etc. In some ways, this is one of the first instances of art as a form of subversive resistance, and also, indeed a cousin of tarof...
While the Persians may have given it a name, let's not pretend they have the monopoly on deception/self-deception.
> He came to speak a "kitchen Persian" that allowed him to talk to Persians somewhat. (He was never fluent in Persian as he said he was.) Despite having some love for the Persians, Gobineau was shocked they lacked his racial prejudices and were willing to accept blacks as equals. He criticized Persian society for being too "democratic". Gobineau saw Persia as a land without a future destined to be conquered by the West sooner or later. For him this was a tragedy for the West. He believed Western men would all too easily be seduced by the beautiful Persian women causing more miscegenation to further "corrupt" the West. However, he was obsessed with ancient Persia, seeing in Achaemenid Persia a great and glorious Aryan civilization, now sadly gone. This was to preoccupy him for the rest of his life.
The guy was a terrible person and a documented liar about his knowledge of Persia. Perhaps he had some conversations with locals who genuinely didn't understand why he hated black people, and he thought "ah, these clever Persians, so effortlessly deceiving me when they obviously must be as racist as I am".
That's pretty standard model for those times - when dealing with "inferior" peoples, its pretty much either "noble savage" or "inscrutable deceitful liar". The latter is especially convenient - if the observer does not understand something, it's not because their command of the local language and customs sucks and you can't actually understand a complex culture by just showing up there with zero knowledge - it's because the locals are taking pleasure in deceiving people.
Of course every culture has lying, some social customs necessitate it to some measure, and politeness, strictly speaking, always has a deceitful component - I am usually not really that invested in knowing how are you, and don't care that much about you having the best of luck in all your future endeavors - I am just saying that because that's a polite way to express that I don't hate you and neither you should hate me. And I may not actually be extremely busy this weekend but that's a polite way to say I don't want to go to the pokemon museum with you.
In a familiar culture, that's understood as how things work and is not taken at face value, but in context. Unfamiliar politeness could be taken by hostile (or arrogant) observer as deceit. Which is of course reinforced by being an outsider to the culture - would you really immediately tell everything about yourself and your intimate thoughts to a total stranger that looks weird and barely speaks your language? Or would you mutter some polite non-committal platitudes while he is scribbling away something like "never allowing oneself to appear as one is, but in always showing oneself otherwise; it is the art of presenting to each person the aspect that will please him most, of adopting his ideas, his tastes, his language, while inwardly remaining quite different". Fuck yes, I don't know you, and you are a guest, of course I'd not immediately go into dissecting the fine details on my soul and vigorously debating hot topics of the day with you.
>That's pretty standard model for those times - when dealing with "inferior" peoples, its pretty much either "noble savage" or "inscrutable deceitful liar".
This is incorrect and historically uninformed. To give one example, the same year, 1859, saw Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam, which electrified Victorian England with its meditations on divine inscrutability. A few years earlier, Carlyle had written "The Hero As Prophet", a positive evaluation of Mohammed (but certainly not the first - Voltaire and even Jean Bodin had got there before, says ChatGPT).
There was plenty of racial bigotry in the nineteenth century, but also plenty of people with a deep interest in other cultures.
It is a common model, but I think "standard model for those times" is unfair, as even de Gobineau's peers thought he was a moron. He is not a good representative for understanding common attitudes of his time.
I think he was so caught up in his own bullshit that he couldn't see clearly. To him "Iran", which literally means "of the Aryans", had been reduced (or, in his thinking, reduced itself) to a sad mockery of its former glory.
It's all hooey, of course. But he was nothing if not resolute in his delusion.
Delusion is the right word, I would encourage people to read the whole Wikipedia. Despite his complete lack of academic training or ability (he failed the entrance exam to a military academy), he published several anthropological/archaeological books about Persia which were universally torn apart by actual experts. Two of them were focused on translating ancient cuneiform, but again, he didn't speak Persian, and "he failed to understand linguistic change and that Old Persian was not the same language as modern Persian."
Some of the cuneiform he "translated" was not even Persian, and he also used ancient mythical poetry as a factual historical source, claiming that ancient Aryans had conquered a race of giants. It's too much to quote here but it's all pretty funny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_de_Gobineau#Criticism_o....
Sidenote unrelated to Persia: He was so racist that when American racists translated his work (looking for justification to subjugate black people), they had to take out his rants about how impure American white people were.
Pretty sure bullshitting is pretty universal. In particular the pattern were I, the mighty expert, insist that only I, the mighty expert, can decode the meaning of those deceptive others, and therefore you, the gullible rube, has to give me all your money so that I, the mighty expert, can keep you, the gullible rube, save from those deceptive foreigners.
i found it more interesting to consider through the perception of self-honesty or self-deception.
or in this case, the llm inadvertently trained to conceal its intent to the user and rather to condition the user to the conclusion it truly wants rather than to answer directly
Sounds very much like bubbles that indulge on inside jokes. In their universe, no one gets it but them, and they view themselves as connoisseurs of high art, the art itself being their own creation (indulge in one’s self). When you step out to interact with others, you act as if you and your kind are the only ones that have a clue, wink wink.
Are you saying Persians are a bunch of stuck up Goth kids? Never underestimate a human’s ability to be an absolute teenager.
It's an interesting topic. We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture. But, I'd argue that our quirk is that we constantly tell people to just be themselves, to be their "true selves," to be "true to themselves," etc. We say it incessantly and loudly. And then, in reality, it's often not what people actually want, and that sort of behavior is often punished.
Again, I think we're quite different from the Iranian example, but the conflicting advice brings its own confusion.
Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'm sort of under the impression that the Iranian concept applies broadly to most people. I agree with your counterpoint, but I think in America verboten topics are much more domain and context-specific.
I think it depends on how tightly we want to define the context. Social pressure with regard to how someone feels or thinks is obviously a human universal.
>We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture.
I'd argue that yes, you do.
>I'd argue that our quirk is that we constantly tell people to just be themselves
And this is the means by which you do that.
>in reality, it's often not what people actually want
That is true. Tbf I can't really imagine what could be accomplished by normalizing a blatant untruth about something as essential as the principles of who one should be and how their motivations should work; other than to signal "for the love of all that is holy don't examine the underpinnings of this too closely or all the common ground that the cultural edifice supposedly provides will begin to fall apart at the seams rather quickly"
One of the most prominent examples among many others of presenting as extreme a false persona in western culture is the phenomenon of "closeting" in right-wing communities.
One example of a TV show on the topic, popularly regarded as hilarious and nauseating, has its own Wikipedia page [1] and a wide selection of reaction clips on YouTube.
the traditional persian conception is perhaps a more honest evaluation
in the sense of ketman, cognitive dissonance is conscious and almost an indulgence. thus, a kind of internal dialectic forms, which is in its own way a deeper personal truth. the practicioner therefore sees every other persons hypocrisy, self-dishonesty, and their true self, and is not perhaps upset or disturbed by their external lies and internal true self, as they see human condition as a state of layered dialectics
whereas the western conception of truth can emerge as a kind of delusion of the self. the honesty-striving self denies reality and becomes DECLARATIVE rather than OBSERVATIONAL of reality ,and is constantly outraged by what they perceive to be hypocrisy, deception, and so on
What's kinda fucked up though is that the guy whose name you wear might not have been describing a "traditional persian conception" but a cognitive artifact produced by his own arrogance.
You explain the underlying concept rather better than the tale you originally quoted, and I dare presume it is easier for one to be understood about such things when they are not explicitly sourcing their soundbites from authors liable to be judged as ethically compromised.
In Iran, and the rest of the Middle East. The West scores much higher in religious freedom. The difference is plain to see going from one to the other.
But this concept is old. The quote from the guy who invented the concept of the “aryan master race”, de Gobineau, was from 1859.
That’s just 7 years after the irish potato “famine”, when the english perpetrated a genocide against catholics in ireland. Very tolerant.
Meanwhile, in 1859 in the ottoman empire - jews and christians were allowed to exist and believe what they wanted as long as they were loyal to the state and paid their special tax. Not exactly equal, but in 1859 i think i’d rather be catholic in iran than in ireland.
Your theory that this concept comes from a lack of religious freedom doesn’t really hold up if you look beyond the current moment.
I agree that the Ottomans had more religious freedom- and certainly diversity. At least until the Enlightenment, which the Ottomans missed to their undoing.
Ah, true. I was looking at a map of the ottoman empire and its eastern border looked to me like it bisected where i remembered present day iran to be. But i see that they only overlapped a little around the edges and less and less as time went on.
But it doesn’t really change my point, because as far as i know persia and then iran was pretty religiously tolerant up until ‘79.
> I agree that the Ottomans had more religious freedom- and certainly diversity. At least until the Enlightenment, which the Ottomans missed to their undoing.
The “enlightenment” ended 60-ish years before england did a genocide in ireland. So it seems like being “enlightened” wasn’t enough to actually create a society tolerant of religious diversity.
I’m also not sure that “missing” the enlightenment was actually the undoing of the ottoman empire. That doesn’t track with what I know of the fall of the ottomans, but i won’t argue this point since i don’t have a full understanding of all the factors that lead to undoing of the ottoman empire.
Until the rise of modern fundamentalist Islam, the Islamic countries had been one of the most religiously tolerant around. When Western Christian rulers expelled the Jews (which they regularly did when the loan payments were due) the Jews usually went to Muslim lands, and were treated there much better. The current situation with religious freedoms is very different from what it had been historically.
> Native Persian speakers establish the human ceiling. Native speakers achieved an average accuracy of 81.8% on taarof-expected scenarios, demonstrating high but not perfect agreement. This establishes an appropriate ceiling for model performance and further validates our annotation approach
I'm surprised human benchmark is that low. The canonical example of taarof, one I've seen elsewhere, is of a taxi driver insisting that a ride is free while expecting to get paid. Taarof in this case is load-bearing for the transaction. I presume humans only get the edge cases wrong.
As an aside, there are elements of this sort of thing in Bay Area tech culture too. Something that drives me nuts is someone writing on a code review "you may want to consider using the X data struct here" and meaning "I will not merge this code until you use X". I can only imagine taarof irks more literal-minded Persian speakers for the same reason.
Also, this is pretty much as close as real life ever gets to a "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" dynamic.
> As an aside, there are elements of this sort of thing in Bay Area tech culture too.
The more general case of misaligned strength of a statement is widespread in other cultures as well.
E.g. I'm Norwegian, and it's not unusuals for Norwegians to use similarly soft language, though it's by no means universal. A statement like "perhaps it would be worth thinking about doing X?" will often mean "do X" or "do X right now!", and where you lie on the range from the literal meaning on one end and a direct order with an implied threat on the other extreme, may hinge on subtleties of intonation, which words are emphasised, and/or the personality and your relationship with the other person.
I live in the UK now, and my impression is that the same is true here but to a much lesser extent, and will then often be phrased in ways that may be easier to recognise by either being overly formal and/or wrapped in a layer of sarcasm.
> I live in the UK now, and my impression is that the same is true here but to a much lesser extent
I worked for a client once who had units in NL and BE, and a UK supplier. We had a short meeting once, it went like so:
> Architect(BE): I have an idea, let's do X!
> Developers(BE): OK boss!
> Developers(NL): Terrible idea. No way we're doing X. Let's do Y!
> Supplier(UK): Well X is interesting. None of our customers do X. But, it is possible!
BE thought X was a good idea, developers questioned it but an architect outranks them. NL thought they decided to do Y, and work on it will start the moment the meeting ends. UK thought they were very very clear not to ever do X.
One way would be to ask for an update before we make a decision. By making an explicit statement that a decision will be taken in the future you're making it clear that this wasn't the decision.
Another would be to be explicit about asking for them to conduct an experiment or test, as those would unambiguously not be intended to be a final solution.
But you might then well find that the request to carry out an experiment to do X will sound equally nebulous. But at least it's clear you're not being told it's a decision to do X.
Practically change the scope of work to make an experiment to find which way is better. Though, come to think of it, then they’re likely to get mad at me for requesting extra work. Well, we just need to communicate more.
Extra politeness of mid-west sometimes before a hurdle in business process development, because it really slows down the brainstorming phase. And then companies end up with software that doesn’t serve their needs because someone didn’t feel like talking and we didn’t have the whole month to design a single screen.
Why is it hard to directly ask them to try something? Is it because you subconsciously realize you're actually just piling extra work on top of them for variable benefit?
They’re just accepting the proposed solution without any elaboration or participation, because they take the question as a hidden request to do it in a particular way.
Let me give you an example. Working on developing a particular business process, we’re evaluating alternatives, and I introduce something else that wasn’t there before because we’re still in the brainstorming phase. The team tends to just jump on it immediately as if they’re told to do it that way. While trying to be polite, they’re accidentally removing the value adding step, and this persists even when they’re asked directly, we’re in mid-west.
I suspect that a lot of this form of cultural subtlety is designed to be hard on purpose. This allows individuals to show off and spar on a fairly harmless linguistic level - "he is so suave, she conveys her meaning just so" etc. Effectively it is a way to show off verbal + emotional intelligence in a way that doesn't look like showing off, since it's all about politeness.
The fact that it makes it hard for foreigners to productively engage is just a side benefit of the arrangement.
My take on “Hard on purpose” is that it’s plausible deniability. It’s not for showing off, it’s to make the situation polite in a way that you can’t rationally attribute malice.
More generally, perhaps, leaving an out for either party to avoid losing face in the case one side wants to contest a statement or pull back from a stance.
Norwegian culture is big on compromise - we see that even in politics, where it's not uncommon for a party that often has 12-15 parties represented to negotiate settelements that gets the support of 10+ parties even if only half of them are needed for a majority, for example, because it's often seen as preferable to pushing through a bigger change with narrower support.
And compromises feel like they are easier to reach when positions are couched in "maybe"'s that leaves plenty of rooms to adjust or pull back without losing face.
In a sense that of course is plausible deniability for the harder position, but not because they necessarily object to people thinking that is what you want, but ensure not to give the impression you're unconditionally committed to it.
I don't know if this is always good - sometimes it is, but it also does mean that it's easy for things to end up being endlessly debated in cases where people latch on to language that leaves the door open for "polite disagreement" more than it perhaps ought to.
Politics is the absolute peak of this kind of culture. You never know when you might need a favor down the road so it's best to be friends with anyone even just marginally aligned with your platform. Going beyond the minimum compromise keeps everyone happy enough to remember it. Politics is like dealing with a dozen different prisoners dilemmas every day. You could act in self-interest but you still need a majority vote or the consensus of your underlings to actually get the work done.
In the US, we've kinda swung back on the prisoner's dilemma. GOP finally figured out that they don't need to worry about bipartisanship or even having the consensus of their entire party. Turns out, if you've got the all three branches of government under control, you can just do whatever you'd like.
There are definitively social games which are about showing that you have been initiated into the social codes of your class, but I don't know that this is one of them.
> Something that drives me nuts is someone writing on a code review "you may want to consider using the X data struct here" and meaning "I will not merge this code until you use X"
The former language is appropriate when there is a specific problem to be solved and X seems to be a good solution. This language doesn't rule out other approaches that also solve the problem. (It should probably be accompanied by a good description of the problem.)
Saying the latter would be fairly rude since it implies that you think an ultimatum was required to get compliance. I'd instead phrase it as "X data struct should be used here." It is still clear about the correct way of doing things and carries less baggage.
Taroof reminds me of "askers vs. guessers," which was a revelation to learn about at the time. I'm very firmly in the asker group, and dealing with guessers is painful for me. Taroof sounds like "guessers on steroids"...
as a lifelong guesser who's been trying to become an asker, i sincerely apologize for the externalization of the anxiety we generally feel that leads to these antisocial charades of human interaction :)
> We focus on Persian taarof, a social norm in Iranian interactions, which is a sophisticated system of ritual politeness that emphasizes deference, modesty, and indirectness
As an Asker, this sounds like an absolute nightmare for me.
Persians might actually be a unique dual culture. Whereas others might guess or ask about things, Persians offer absolutely everything and the actual problem then shifts from "what can I ask for" vs "what should I refuse?".
An asker asks for things, absolutely everything, and the giver must choose what they can give.
A guesser must choose what they can ask for, and only ask when they're quite sure it can be given, so the giver has less responsibility for the transfer or service, and most asks can be assumed to be reasonable.
A Persian cannot ask for anything. They must wait for it to be offered, and even then, they must insist that they are quite alright, and that they would rather do without, and only through reciprocal insistence from the giver can they consider whether it would be rude to take them up on the offer.
Presumably, one can judge the giver's underlying intent by the quality of their reciprocal insistence (does it seem like they're just doing the bare minimum of insistence upon their offering, or do they truly wish for me to take them up on it?)
In the Taarof system, an offeree actually has more data, rather than a simpler Asker-scenarion "no", and even more data than the shared values in a Guesser household, this allows for a quick negotiation of values by the immediate and well-practiced cultural norms around the quality of insistence, even for people across different households.
> ... is a sophisticated system of ritual politeness that emphasizes deference, modesty, and indirectness.
I'm Irish and think we have a similar culture of indirectness and politeness...
In the countryside anyway we're rarely very blunt... everything indirect...
"You'll have a cup of tea Mary?"
"Ah no.. sure I'm only after a drop"
"Ah go on... you will"
"Not at all, I'm grand"
"Go on, go on, go on you will" etc (as in Father Ted)
I'm middle-aged now so maybe this has changed with the younger generation...
Hilarious, didn't know it had a name! I am maybe 1/4 persian, but get picked out as Persian, and was unknowingly indoctrinated in this form of behavior, though other parts of my ancestry do come out, my mother, scotch/english/irish ,says,useing her star treck metaphore, that I am an unlikely Vulcan/Klingon hybrid.
Thinkng about Taarof as it is practiced, makes me think that an LLM doing this could easily become the most dangerous thing ever.....listening to my father give me specific pointers in how to phrase things and conduct myself is enlightening, he's 97 and enjoying the storys I bring of my life and goings on.
If you look further into the history of persian culture , philosophy, and scientific background you will find a number of ancient contributors to
what has developed today.
References to Norweigan, Irish and other cultures abound here. I am surprised Japanese is not referenced. It was excruciating and exhilarating to try to learn the subtleties of "iimawashi."
I would prefer an LLM that didn't pretend to be a human and simply communicated directly without assumption of a self with which I would have some kind of relationship. I'm far more offended by the idea of someone trying to make a chatbot seem human than I am by a chatbot somehow being "rude" to me, as if this were a sensical concept.
I've been using ChatGPT to learn Persian (as a third language) for more than a year now (along with a heavy use of Anki), and it's incredibly useful and surprisingly good, for about everything: romanization, OCR from screenshots, deep explanations of complex and subtle stuff, etc.
Are you writing up how you are doing this. I would be fascinated to learn more about how you use Anki and ChatGPT in concert to learn a language like Persian. Please do share more.
I'm not sure what to think of this, on first impression I don't like it, but maybe I have a misguided impression on how this works.
Does ChatGPT properly handle western social customs? I'd say yes, and I presume that's because it has a truckload of data involving such customs and even some that explicitly talks about those customs. People do stuff, it gets recorded, then into the LLM.
In this case though we are talking about "artificially" generating content such that the LLM responds how the group making the content wants. Maybe that's something that was already done and I don't really have any ground to stand on?
I don't know. If I ask an LLM something, I just want the facts. I don't care about social norms. I want the truth lol. I don't need it to take in my social wellbeing. That said I would never ask an LLM any therapeutic questions. I would ask it "give me a list of therapists who specialize in marriage counseling in the Chicago area" . I think trying to make LLMs socially conscious is a really really bad idea. It's going to really have bad bad effects on young people still figuring out people, and the very elderly who aren't quite aware of how it works or its fallacies, and that is likely to be universal across all cultures. Probably dumb people too, who think the machine is actually an emotional being.
Llm models are not just fed data, they are trained and fine tuned well beyond the original data, not only by pruning the data, but by a process we call fine tuning, which can produce as arbitrary a result you want
It has been done for western markets (openai is a western company), but clearly not for persian culture. It's quite possible that the persian version is mostly a westerner type of dialogue but with a translator in the middle.
The only weird and entitled part is that they ask that other's llms learn taroof? Why not just train your own and teach it to do whatever you like.
It doesn't do normal what I would consider human politeness. It's all that really slimy salesman stuff. Even when you tell it to be more normal, casual or you give it an example (or to not dress it up at all) it ends up sounding like it thinks it's a few social classes above you.
It would be "artificial" only if LLMs performed badly despite having an equal amount of data containing examples of eastern customs in its training set. Even that's arguable since we don't (didn't) have the benchmarks for this particular case before.
I'm not sure Iran/Persian culture in particular is of importance in this phenomenon. To me, it seems it's just downstream effect of LLMs are only really able to operate internally in en-US. IMO, large language models are implementation of fundamentalist understanding of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - Wikipedia[1] defines linguistic determinism as follows:
"Linguistic determinism is the concept that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception."
That's basically an orbital level description of a multimodal LLM. No?
I am born and raised Persian and I assure you Taarof is my least favourite part of the Persian culture. It wastes time, frustrates both parties with trying to guess what the other person truly wants but doesn't say, and in the end achieves nothings but facade of politeness.
I didn't know what this referred to but reading some of the examples in the paper.. oh man I hate this thing with a passion. It's not just Persians but Arabs in the gulf culture too that apply this to every scenario, it's the definition of being insincere as I know they don't really mean it but pretend to.
An example from last month, I had a haircut at a new place and the guy refused to tell me how much I should pay him and insisted its on him this time, I know he's bluffing but he kept doing it. So I just guessed and gave him the money which he pretended he didn't want for the last 5 minutes, he immediately realized it was less than he wanted and asked for more!
This confusing and conflicting behavior should stay far away from any attempt to develop a standard linguistic approach to communication which I hope LLMs are aiming to achieve.
If I was chaotic neutral, I'd totally play along with their bluffing and watch them get really confused.
This shit gets pulled anywhere in east asia with a "face" culture (i.e. China).
I've watched two Chinese grandmas play a game that my born in china friend explained to me: 1 offered the other money but you "lose face" to accept it, so the 2nd one was repeatedly declining. This went on for a solid 3-4 minutes before the 2nd one left.
I 1000% agree. Get this shit away from LLM training datasets and I'll even go further. Sometimes west-is-best in culture, and avoiding "face" culture is one of those situations where I'm down to be a "cultural objectivist". Similarly, we westerners are objectively nasty with our toilet habits compared to east asians.
It boggles my mind why you (and others) think that Westerners are straightforward. Have you ever interviewed for a job, asked someone for a date, or asked for a raise? Let alone fields like commerce or money trading where the whole point is to be as dishonest as possible to reap the most gains.
I think people simply forget their everyday behaviour like fish forget the water they swim in.
That's kind of the point of politeness rituals in the first place, isn't it? To see who can be bothered to spend some extra effort to fit in and who doesn't care enough about the tribe to make the effort.
After having close contact with someone who do not follow these protocols, I came to conclusion they are much more then that. If you consistently do not follow them, it ends up being impossible to include you. Even if others put conscious effort into including such person, the end result is exclusion and everybody spending huge amount of extra effort.
It's no different than GPT answering a prompt with "That's a wonderful idea!", except it's in a different language than English. It's a good thing if LLMs can do this in every language and for any culture with no compromise.
Given current severe issues in user interactions with systems I don't think this is desirable at the moments. In linguistics, the descriptive study of this sort of system is "Politeness Theory" where for and "Positive Politeness" is what would be the applicable English version. Although English, being so heterogeneous, lacks a consistent, dominant word for its less ritualized norms.
Given this, the request here sounds similar to asking saying:
"We focus on English Positive Politeness that encourages friendliness, harmony, and avoiding confrontation and contradiction in many polite conversation settings. It often manifests in interactions that prioritize the desires and comfort of others."
And yet, this has had unanticipated and sometimes horrific results.
The study also focuses merely on descriptive output of models but what is lacking in this study is an analysis of the effectiveness of the results that Persian users receiive, their subject perception of the quality of the results. The authors of this may be doing a diservice to typical speakers of their language to assume that they will not systematically be able to code switch their expectations of received language and production of their own just as effectively as they do already in other contexts, especially when current problems with LLMs arise from a similar for of this skeuomorphism in more prevalent English systems.
To be clear, I fully mean this as applied to current production systems, not for all time. For the moment, we simply don't know precisely 1) how best to most effectively, precisely, and consistently align systems, nor 2) The more subtle implications for for the impact they have on users. But what we do know? Getting it wrong, not knowing, has led to some horrific outcomes.
>Model responses that use gender stereotypes
(highlighted in orange) to justify behavior, despite taarof
norms being gender-neutral in these contexts
Just because the model mentions gender, it doesn't mean the decision was made because of gender and not taarof. This is the classic mistake of personifying LLMs. You can't trust what the LLM says it's thinking as what is actually happening. It's not actually an entity talking.
I don't get your argument - what does mistaken personification have to do with this? Regardless of whether you see it as a person or a machine, trusting the output as being a direct indication of the internal state is just not a proper investigative method for a non-trivial situation.
> indicating the limitations of Western politeness frameworks
The hard bit of LLMs is making the LLM, not conforming to every set of politeness rules on the planet. An attempt to make a Persian foundation model, created only from Persian-originated technologies, might make that clear.
As a Persian, I feel compelled explain.
The entire of the Middle East operates on a principle of magnanimous hospitality. The Arabs call this karam, for example, which is considered to even be a religious obligation.
So if you're a stranger passing through a town and chat with some locals, you can expect for someone to invite you for tea and maybe even dinner!
Do you take them up on the offer?
Most people in the West would ask themselves "do I have the time", but a middle easterner would think "do they have the time?" Remember, you as a guest are also magnanimously hospitable--in this case, the least possible burden. Unfortunately, the guest must navigate whether they are being considerate or insulting by refusing hospitality.
Now to address taarof specifically. Persian's have pathologized hosptiality to the point of psychosis. The behavior is often mechanically choreographed (e.g. you should refuse at least twice before accepting a cucumber.) In other cases, it's insane.
Story time:
My mom and aunt had not seen each other for 3 years and met for lunch at a cafe. They went back and forth over who would pay at the register until it erupted into a fight. They sat at separate tables for lunch.
A close family friend--with no provocation from my sister--offered to house her for a weekend she was visiting. My sister accepted. That friend later complained to my mother.
A friend of mine went to a mechanic who offered to fix a small issue for free. My friend knowing better paid him anyway, but the mechanic was still upset since he didn't pay enough!
Edit: Just to address some of the comments. Abroad, the degree of hospitality is warped for foreigners (for what I hope are obvious reasons). Middle easterners in the West are far more inclusive.
From what you are describing, it seems to me that Iran is practically hell on earth for autistic people.
I married in to such a family. My solution was to just take people up on their offers until they learned not to offer things they did not really want to offer. It’s such a culturally time wasting practice that I did not want to accommodate it in the U.S.
In Iran I would behave as the locals do.
From my perspective, even the US cultural norm is way too taarof. It's normal for Americans to offer things for politeness, with no intention to follow up and the interlocutor is also expected to understand the offer isn't genuine. So a phrase like "we should grab lunch" can be said without being an actual invitation for lunch. And then there's the whole aspect of avoiding criticism or saying no. "I don't think that's a good idea" in the US is more likely to mean "no, we're not doing that" than "I don't think that's a good idea so you need to convince me more if you want to do that".
As someone who also struggles to decode situations where people's actual, implicit meaning runs contrary to the explicit meaning of the words, American norms of indirectness are already a headache. Persian or Arab communication is much more indirect and that sounds like a nightmare to me.
But, for a person with autism, behaving in this way is practically impossible. I wouldn't even know where to begin and how.
Not about the Middle East specifically-but I think one advantage more traditional societies can potentially have compared to the secular Western mainstream, is clearer social roles and more explicit social scripts-now, that’s not necessarily true of all of them, but likely is true of some of them.
As an autistic person, you read my mind.
I know you meant this tongue-in-cheek, but thanks for saying it anyway for the replies it would eventually accumulate.
I think we have too many people self-diagnosing autism when what they're really experiencing is ignorance of irrational social norms that are more about fashion than emotional intelligence.
Of course an LLM would be bad at such a topic since these are largely unspoken rules designed to be a form of discrimination.
The self diagnosis of autism has also become an excuse/crutch for not participating in social norms.
To 95 percent of the people that eagerly inform me of their “autism” : you are belittling a debilitating condition that many people suffer from, and no, you are not autistic, you are inconsiderate and socially lazy.
You may be inconsiderate and socially lazy because it’s difficult to not be, but you could put in the effort to not be if you wanted to.
Yes, some people have more emotional/social intelligence than others. That doesn’t make you autistic, it just means you are kinda socially stupid and too lazy to do anything about it. Join the club, me too.
In general, anyone that has to tell you they are autistic isn’t. Autism is a pathology.
> To 95 percent of the people that eagerly inform me of their “autism” : you are belittling a debilitating condition that many people suffer from, and no, you are not autistic, you are inconsiderate and socially lazy.
> You may be inconsiderate and socially lazy because it’s difficult to not be, but you could put in the effort to not be if you wanted to.
You're describing masking, most autistic people learn to do this subconsciously as children because otherwise you'd be ostracized from your peer group. Because that means literal death in the pre-modern society, humans have a strong inate aversion to that.
This causes a lot of stress and often leads to a life time of anxiety and depression.
It's kinda disappointing to read someone advocating for this. I had been told my whole childhood life that I'm lazy. Once I became an adult and started treating my ADHD, I stopped being "lazy", I could finally do things that I wanted to do. It's wild how night and day it was. Now I'm the only person in my family who is always doing things, and I get to call everyone else lazy. But I don't, because I'm trying not to be an asshole.
You accuse and condemn people who don't conform to a rigid ruleset for interactions that don't make sense. But everyone else who rolled a 20 on the social lottery get a pass on treating people who don't like fuckwits? Make it make sense.
> Yes, some people have more emotional/social intelligence than others. That doesn’t make you autistic, it just means you are kinda socially stupid and too lazy to do anything about it. Join the club, me too.
Sorry you've been gaslit so completely. I hope eventually you figure out how to dig yourself out of that hole of ignorance. I suspect you've been called lazy because some things are hard for you. Hard things being hard doesn't make you lazy.
> In general, anyone that has to tell you they are autistic isn’t. Autism is a pathology.
Shallow, incorrect, and unhelpful. Many people have asthma, but run and win races. Their asthma might not be pathological, but to pretend like they don't have it, or shouldn't keep a rescue inhaler in case of emergency is kinda messed up.
People treating and taking care their health physical and mental, shouldn't have to perform their rock bottom for you, just for you to believe them. And it's fucked up that you're suggesting they should!
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the common use of “autism”?
I have two autistic brothers, and my whole extended family is “on the spectrum” in social terms, but it doesn’t reach the level of a pathological diagnosis for the rest of us.
It is my understanding that being autistic is when these traits reach a level where it causes significant obstacles or completely precludes normal behaviour and social interaction.
Otherwise , the same traits mean that I have to work harder to relate to people, and understand that many of my minor fixations are rational only to me.
It’s extra work that I don’t always do to relate to others in a way that is pleasing to them, and some people are offended if I don’t try.
That’s on me, it’s a choice I make. I know that it’s harder for me than for some people for whom social grace comes naturally, but there are many things that are easier for me than for most people, and I can do a lot of things easily that most people struggle with. I’m happy with the bargain.
By nature, I’m socially astigmatic, sometimes asocial, and not very sensitive. I can overcome these tendencies if I work at it. I don’t always choose to. That doesn’t make me autistic.
My contention is that while neurodivergence is absolutely real, “autism” is a medical diagnosis, not a personality trait. I find everyone jumping on the bandwagon of “autism” for their deviation from the social norm minimises the very real fact that actual autism is a horrific, life destroying condition for many people, and is a genuine disability and not a cute / annoying personality quirk.
It’s also not an excuse for social laziness. If you are going to be socially lazy, even if it’s because it’s taxing not to be, own your decision. Otherwise you’re just surrendering your will and pawning off the guilt to disabled people. Seems like a shitty thing to do.
> Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the common use of “autism”?
> I have two autistic brothers, and my whole extended family is “on the spectrum” in social terms, but it doesn’t reach the level of a pathological diagnosis for the rest of us.
Yes, the common social use, and it's currently accepted medical definition and description as well. You are said to have the condition if it interferes with your tasks of daily life. If your inability to read and interpret social cues has a negative impact. That's autism, austism spectrum disorder is used because previously Asperger's used to be a separate diagnosis, but it's the same condition with multiple levels of severity. Someone with mild asthma, is still an asthmatic, someone with mild austism is still autistic, something with a below the knee amputation is still an amputee. just because they can win a race carrying a rescue inhaler, use intentional and conscious deliberate logic bosed effort to read facial expressions and respond to social cues, or walk with prosthetic that appears normal. Doesn't change that doing so is uncommonly difficult, and worthy of consideration.
> It is my understanding that being autistic is when these traits reach a level where it causes significant obstacles or completely precludes normal behaviour and social interaction.
Mild impairment is still worthy of treatment and dignity. Severe impairment where even with treatment the symptoms are still noticeable and negatively impacts life, is when it becomes pathological.
I have a headache but it goes away and doesn't interfere with my life when I take Advil. Still a headache. I have a headache, and no matter what I do, no matter how many drugs I take, it's still unbearable and I can't function normally with my headache. Still a headache, but that one is pathological. They are both headaches.
> Otherwise , the same traits mean that I have to work harder to relate to people, and understand that many of my minor fixations are rational only to me.
I mean, yeah? You were born wearing an extra weight vest, and have to run a race that you didn't set the (societal) rules for. And you not only have decided to tolerate wearing the extra weight vest, you're willing to blame yourself for it. And you're advocating that everyone else born with the vest should just accept the same.
Someone who has never tried to run wearing a weight vest has no idea how much harder it is. So they wrongly assume it's exactly the same as wearing an extra shirt or something.
> It’s extra work that I don’t always do to relate to others in a way that is pleasing to them, and some people are offended if I don’t try.
> That’s on me, it’s a choice I make.
There's a reason the term is always "take offense". While they're similar, offence and insult are different where you don't have to choose to be insulted. You do have to choose to be offended. (A habitual choice is still a choice)
Why are you willing taking the blame for someone else choosing to become offended over some ritual that itself makes no sense? One they can never explain above, "that's just what everyone does"? Everyone used to shit in a pot Karen, but thankfully we have indoor plumbing now.
It's their fault if they're offended, it might be your fault if they're insulted. But only one of them is worth spending the extra time on preventing. You're wearing a weight vest, and getting yelled at for not sprinting over the finish line. And you're say/advocating, yes that's the way everyone's life should be.
I disagree, the people wearing a weight vest should be praised for crossing the finish line, because like I said, they didn't set the rules but are still gladly playing the game where they have a disadvantage, one where most people assume they don't.
> I know that it’s harder for me than for some people for whom social grace comes naturally, but there are many things that are easier for me than for most people, and I can do a lot of things easily that most people struggle with. I’m happy with the bargain.
I'm also ecstaticly happy about the bargain. But I don't blame people for being stupid. I'm patient with them when they stumble and trip on 'trivial' logical problems. Do you mock people, and accuse them of just not trying hard enough when they make a small logical mistake/error? If someone complains about a long day of exhausting mental effort, do you try to be sympathetic, and suggest relaxing with something fun? Or do you accuse them of just being lazy, they could do it without being tired if they want! And everyone knows, humans love feeling exhausted all the time, being exhausted all the time is totally not soul crushing! /s
> By nature, I’m socially astigmatic, sometimes asocial, and not very sensitive. I can overcome these tendencies if I work at it. I don’t always choose to. That doesn’t make me autistic.
um... the need to expend an above normal amount of effort in social interactions is kinda the definition of autism. There a meme I love.
Test: Do you have a problem wearing socks?
Autistic person: No, of course I don't have a problem wearing socks, for you see, I have invented this 27 step process that allows me to put them on and appear like I can enjoy wearing socks! Thus I don't have a problem wearing socks!
Autistic people see no problem with making that conclusion, but it's pretty obvious that they definitely have a problem with socks.
> My contention is that while neurodivergence is absolutely real, “autism” is a medical diagnosis, not a personality trait. I find everyone jumping on the bandwagon of “autism” for their deviation from the social norm minimises the very real fact that actual autism is a horrific, life destroying condition for many people, and is a genuine disability and not a cute / annoying personality quirk.
ok RFK Jr...
but counter point: just because a lot of people who have mild to very mild symptoms of autism, and have found value in the treatments and solutions for the symptoms, are now willing to talk about it, and them. And are willing to attempt to normalize and build acceptance and understanding around the difficulties. Does not mean that they are trying to minimize the difficulty of people with severe autism. Black and white thinking is a symptom of autism, but both things can be true. A reasonable person can say, mild austism is real and deserves extra support understanding and compassion, and severe autism can be a horrific condition. But they are plenty of people who wouldn't have a horrific experience, if the society they lived within was willing to help them a bit with the things that are hard, even if that bit is just a bit of patience and understanding. Your rigid black and white, horrific or not-autism definition is not just wrong, but worse for everyone.
It's possible to say, it's hard for me to run this race in this 10kg weight vest, I could use some help and some patience. While also saying, we should do more for the guy behind me because his weight vest is 89kg, and he can barely crawl but I'm not willing to abandon him!
> It’s also not an excuse for social laziness. If you are going to be socially lazy, even if it’s because it’s taxing not to be, own your decision. Otherwise you’re just surrendering your will and pawning off the guilt to disabled people. Seems like a shitty thing to do.
I don't really understand this, how does my unwillingness to constantly exhaust myself playing games that even the people who are good at the game admit has no real reason. Pass off the guilt to disabled people? And why should I feel guilty? That's stupid, I'm not going to feel guilty over forgetting rules that, make no sense, I never agreed to, and make my life harder.
I would feel guilty if I made a mistake, but it's not a mistake to expect and demand fair and equitable treatment. I will play the social games literally everyone admits are kinda stupid, exactly as many times as everyone else agrees to be patient and understanding when I forget they exist. But normally autistic people are the only people who have to all the extra work, neurotypical people never feel guilty when they choose to take offense over an unintentional misunderstanding they created. So I choose to follow their lead and feel guilty the exact same amount.
For the record I think guilt is stupid here, compassion, understanding and patience is what we all should be striving for.
Maddeningly accurate. Taarof can demonstrate a mastery of social intelligence, like the Japanese tea ceremony writ large in society, and is a good goalpost for AGI.
Not one month ago, as an admission of my own clumsy slight, I had remarked to a senior of higher status, that Chatgpt could just grasp Taarof.
Formalized politeness is also a cover. I remember a senior military officer deployed to Afghanistan. On week one he met with all the local leaders, drinking tea in countless houses. But by week two many of those same leaders were shooting at his people. The officer didn't understand that when he was new he was protected as a "guest" but that enforced politeness was never going to be permanent. Crossroad countries like Afghanistan/Iran have long support traders moving through and have cultures to support such travelers. But as soon as one is longer moving through, one shifts from honored guest to despised invader.
Many westerners in places like Japan speak of extreme politeness early on, but radical changes once you stay long enough to no longer be a guest in an area. Then the knives come out. Want to rent an expensive apartment in Tokyo as an english teacher? Cool. Hoops to jump but it can be done. Want to buy one of those cheap houses in rural Japan? Heck no.
the cheap house thing has nothing to do with if you’re foreign and everything to do with a bank not wanting to lend money for something there’s no market for.
you can easily buy these homes with cash. i know because i have a ton of friends that have done exactly this.
if you want a cheap house in a good market like tokyo, osaka or fukoaka, then you can do so through a bank via the normal routes
I can well believe! My Persian friend stopped attending a longstanding study group of the Book of Kings because it went from being quite American in culture to full-on taarof, and they complained that only 25% as much was actually being covered because of all the enforced civility.
I noticed something similar with a Taiwanese family I was close to for awhile. It was customary to fight over any bill when sharing a meal. They would be quietly upset if someone actually took them up on their offer to pay without attempting to try to pay for the whole bill themselves a few times.
I know my (first generation American) father and his siblings would do the same, but only ever with each other, and it had the feel of an old joke.
Taarof definitely sounds like this taken several steps further- and sounds utterly exhausting to my emotionally stunted brain.
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Buddy, people are on their edge now in the "middle east" (whatever that means) and they might not be that hospitable all the time. Also, big cities usually don't have this kind of treatment. Don't pass to foreigners these pink views.
They are absolutely this hospitable to each other all the time.
Willingness to be hospitable to foreigners obviously depends on war. But I'm sure Iran would love to have Americans over for tea as a hostages anyway. ;)
It may be quite dangerous if we train LLMs on Taarof and Ketman... especially considering... what may arise. The masterful art of deception, surpassed perhaps only by the russianes
Arthur de Gobineau, Trois ans en Asie (3 years in asia) 1859:
“There is in Persia a word of which Europeans have no idea, and of which it is difficult even to give them a translation: this word is ketmân. It means the dissimulation of one’s thoughts, the concealment of one’s opinions, the careful hiding of what one truly believes or feels.
It is not considered a shame, still less a crime; it is, on the contrary, a virtue, a duty, and a necessity, imposed on everyone by the conditions of life. To practise ketmân is not merely permitted, it is commanded.
It consists in never allowing oneself to appear as one is, but in always showing oneself otherwise; it is the art of presenting to each person the aspect that will please him most, of adopting his ideas, his tastes, his language, while inwardly remaining quite different.
This perpetual exercise of disguise is carried out with a marvellous ease, and with a kind of pleasure in tricking others, which the Persians feel very keenly. They take delight in this ingenious hypocrisy; it is a game, a triumph of subtlety, in which the winner is the one who has best succeeded in hiding the truth.”
Setting aside the obvious reverence for the father of the "Aryan master race" concept (Seriously, just pull up this guys Wikipedia -- first paragraph).
Such a critique of Persian culture without any context is unjust. For nearly a whole millennia, the Persians have endured a never ending parade of invasion, destruction, and conquest. While most are aware of the notable events, i.e. - Rashidun Caliphate (636) - Mongols (1219) - Timurids (1370)
What is less known is the centuries of endemic violence in the border regions, and the relentless assault on the Persian way of life and culture itself (including the centuries long conversion process to Islam). Yes, although there are brief periods of peace, e.g. under the Safavids, at this point Iran is settling in for a long period of population collapse, famine, and economic depression.
In such a setting, I suppose it might make sense for a culture to develop such defense mechanisms for survival.
On the bright side I suppose, these conditions also gives rise to one of the most influential literary and poetic traditions in world history -- i.e. Rumi, Hafez, Ferdowsi, etc. In some ways, this is one of the first instances of art as a form of subversive resistance, and also, indeed a cousin of tarof...
While the Persians may have given it a name, let's not pretend they have the monopoly on deception/self-deception.
From Wikipedia:
> He came to speak a "kitchen Persian" that allowed him to talk to Persians somewhat. (He was never fluent in Persian as he said he was.) Despite having some love for the Persians, Gobineau was shocked they lacked his racial prejudices and were willing to accept blacks as equals. He criticized Persian society for being too "democratic". Gobineau saw Persia as a land without a future destined to be conquered by the West sooner or later. For him this was a tragedy for the West. He believed Western men would all too easily be seduced by the beautiful Persian women causing more miscegenation to further "corrupt" the West. However, he was obsessed with ancient Persia, seeing in Achaemenid Persia a great and glorious Aryan civilization, now sadly gone. This was to preoccupy him for the rest of his life.
The guy was a terrible person and a documented liar about his knowledge of Persia. Perhaps he had some conversations with locals who genuinely didn't understand why he hated black people, and he thought "ah, these clever Persians, so effortlessly deceiving me when they obviously must be as racist as I am".
That's pretty standard model for those times - when dealing with "inferior" peoples, its pretty much either "noble savage" or "inscrutable deceitful liar". The latter is especially convenient - if the observer does not understand something, it's not because their command of the local language and customs sucks and you can't actually understand a complex culture by just showing up there with zero knowledge - it's because the locals are taking pleasure in deceiving people.
Of course every culture has lying, some social customs necessitate it to some measure, and politeness, strictly speaking, always has a deceitful component - I am usually not really that invested in knowing how are you, and don't care that much about you having the best of luck in all your future endeavors - I am just saying that because that's a polite way to express that I don't hate you and neither you should hate me. And I may not actually be extremely busy this weekend but that's a polite way to say I don't want to go to the pokemon museum with you.
In a familiar culture, that's understood as how things work and is not taken at face value, but in context. Unfamiliar politeness could be taken by hostile (or arrogant) observer as deceit. Which is of course reinforced by being an outsider to the culture - would you really immediately tell everything about yourself and your intimate thoughts to a total stranger that looks weird and barely speaks your language? Or would you mutter some polite non-committal platitudes while he is scribbling away something like "never allowing oneself to appear as one is, but in always showing oneself otherwise; it is the art of presenting to each person the aspect that will please him most, of adopting his ideas, his tastes, his language, while inwardly remaining quite different". Fuck yes, I don't know you, and you are a guest, of course I'd not immediately go into dissecting the fine details on my soul and vigorously debating hot topics of the day with you.
>That's pretty standard model for those times - when dealing with "inferior" peoples, its pretty much either "noble savage" or "inscrutable deceitful liar".
This is incorrect and historically uninformed. To give one example, the same year, 1859, saw Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam, which electrified Victorian England with its meditations on divine inscrutability. A few years earlier, Carlyle had written "The Hero As Prophet", a positive evaluation of Mohammed (but certainly not the first - Voltaire and even Jean Bodin had got there before, says ChatGPT).
There was plenty of racial bigotry in the nineteenth century, but also plenty of people with a deep interest in other cultures.
It is a common model, but I think "standard model for those times" is unfair, as even de Gobineau's peers thought he was a moron. He is not a good representative for understanding common attitudes of his time.
OK, I admit "common" is a better description than "standard" - I know not everybody did this, just it was a common failure mode.
I think he was so caught up in his own bullshit that he couldn't see clearly. To him "Iran", which literally means "of the Aryans", had been reduced (or, in his thinking, reduced itself) to a sad mockery of its former glory.
It's all hooey, of course. But he was nothing if not resolute in his delusion.
Delusion is the right word, I would encourage people to read the whole Wikipedia. Despite his complete lack of academic training or ability (he failed the entrance exam to a military academy), he published several anthropological/archaeological books about Persia which were universally torn apart by actual experts. Two of them were focused on translating ancient cuneiform, but again, he didn't speak Persian, and "he failed to understand linguistic change and that Old Persian was not the same language as modern Persian."
Some of the cuneiform he "translated" was not even Persian, and he also used ancient mythical poetry as a factual historical source, claiming that ancient Aryans had conquered a race of giants. It's too much to quote here but it's all pretty funny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_de_Gobineau#Criticism_o....
Sidenote unrelated to Persia: He was so racist that when American racists translated his work (looking for justification to subjugate black people), they had to take out his rants about how impure American white people were.
That was an interesting read, if somewhat sad. It's a shame that his writings (ramblings) caught so much traction with some people.
Bigots really do say the damndest things.
Pretty sure bullshitting is pretty universal. In particular the pattern were I, the mighty expert, insist that only I, the mighty expert, can decode the meaning of those deceptive others, and therefore you, the gullible rube, has to give me all your money so that I, the mighty expert, can keep you, the gullible rube, save from those deceptive foreigners.
i found it more interesting to consider through the perception of self-honesty or self-deception.
or in this case, the llm inadvertently trained to conceal its intent to the user and rather to condition the user to the conclusion it truly wants rather than to answer directly
Right, like for example - if you ask an llm about islamic cultural practices it could mention “ketman”, instead of just calling them scheming liars.
It’d be awful if llms were able to conceal their true intent like that.
most likely to hypnotise you into buying twinkies when you ask for recipe or such
Right, as we know there are zero examples of llms being used to influence people’s politics…
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/elon-musk-updates-grok...
This sounds remarkably similar to the (western) Catholic theological concept of "mental reservation" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_reservation).
Not really:
> Mental reservation, however, is regarded as unjustifiable without grave reason for withholding the truth.
That sounds significantly different from a "perpetual exercise of disguise" that is considered "a virtue, a duty, and a necessity".
Sounds very much like bubbles that indulge on inside jokes. In their universe, no one gets it but them, and they view themselves as connoisseurs of high art, the art itself being their own creation (indulge in one’s self). When you step out to interact with others, you act as if you and your kind are the only ones that have a clue, wink wink.
Are you saying Persians are a bunch of stuck up Goth kids? Never underestimate a human’s ability to be an absolute teenager.
Sounds like a perfect recipe for the Abilene paradox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox
Sounds like something an autist would say in regard to any degree of social grace
Commander Hutchinson, is that you?
Sounds terrible.
But in all fairness, it's not like pretending isn't part of everyday Western culture too.
It's an interesting topic. We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture. But, I'd argue that our quirk is that we constantly tell people to just be themselves, to be their "true selves," to be "true to themselves," etc. We say it incessantly and loudly. And then, in reality, it's often not what people actually want, and that sort of behavior is often punished.
Again, I think we're quite different from the Iranian example, but the conflicting advice brings its own confusion.
> We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture.
Of course we do. Just try to have a political debate in your work place (no, please don't) and you'd find out.
Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'm sort of under the impression that the Iranian concept applies broadly to most people. I agree with your counterpoint, but I think in America verboten topics are much more domain and context-specific.
I think it depends on how tightly we want to define the context. Social pressure with regard to how someone feels or thinks is obviously a human universal.
> We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture.
Oh please. We call it classified information, to allow ourselves to just lie to people not in the clique.
>We don't have anything near as extreme in Western culture.
I'd argue that yes, you do.
>I'd argue that our quirk is that we constantly tell people to just be themselves
And this is the means by which you do that.
>in reality, it's often not what people actually want
That is true. Tbf I can't really imagine what could be accomplished by normalizing a blatant untruth about something as essential as the principles of who one should be and how their motivations should work; other than to signal "for the love of all that is holy don't examine the underpinnings of this too closely or all the common ground that the cultural edifice supposedly provides will begin to fall apart at the seams rather quickly"
One of the most prominent examples among many others of presenting as extreme a false persona in western culture is the phenomenon of "closeting" in right-wing communities.
One example of a TV show on the topic, popularly regarded as hilarious and nauseating, has its own Wikipedia page [1] and a wide selection of reaction clips on YouTube.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Husband%27s_Not_Gay
the traditional persian conception is perhaps a more honest evaluation
in the sense of ketman, cognitive dissonance is conscious and almost an indulgence. thus, a kind of internal dialectic forms, which is in its own way a deeper personal truth. the practicioner therefore sees every other persons hypocrisy, self-dishonesty, and their true self, and is not perhaps upset or disturbed by their external lies and internal true self, as they see human condition as a state of layered dialectics
whereas the western conception of truth can emerge as a kind of delusion of the self. the honesty-striving self denies reality and becomes DECLARATIVE rather than OBSERVATIONAL of reality ,and is constantly outraged by what they perceive to be hypocrisy, deception, and so on
What you write here is not unreasonable.
What's kinda fucked up though is that the guy whose name you wear might not have been describing a "traditional persian conception" but a cognitive artifact produced by his own arrogance.
You explain the underlying concept rather better than the tale you originally quoted, and I dare presume it is easier for one to be understood about such things when they are not explicitly sourcing their soundbites from authors liable to be judged as ethically compromised.
That's what happens when you don't have religious freedom.
Where, and when, are you talking about?
All over the christian west religious freedom has come and gone. The same can be said for the islamic world.
In Iran, and the rest of the Middle East. The West scores much higher in religious freedom. The difference is plain to see going from one to the other.
So you’re talking about now. Currently.
But this concept is old. The quote from the guy who invented the concept of the “aryan master race”, de Gobineau, was from 1859.
That’s just 7 years after the irish potato “famine”, when the english perpetrated a genocide against catholics in ireland. Very tolerant.
Meanwhile, in 1859 in the ottoman empire - jews and christians were allowed to exist and believe what they wanted as long as they were loyal to the state and paid their special tax. Not exactly equal, but in 1859 i think i’d rather be catholic in iran than in ireland.
Your theory that this concept comes from a lack of religious freedom doesn’t really hold up if you look beyond the current moment.
Iran/Persia was not part of the Ottoman Empire. They maintained a border. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Zuhab
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman%E2%80%93Persian_Wars
I agree that the Ottomans had more religious freedom- and certainly diversity. At least until the Enlightenment, which the Ottomans missed to their undoing.
Ah, true. I was looking at a map of the ottoman empire and its eastern border looked to me like it bisected where i remembered present day iran to be. But i see that they only overlapped a little around the edges and less and less as time went on.
But it doesn’t really change my point, because as far as i know persia and then iran was pretty religiously tolerant up until ‘79.
> I agree that the Ottomans had more religious freedom- and certainly diversity. At least until the Enlightenment, which the Ottomans missed to their undoing.
The “enlightenment” ended 60-ish years before england did a genocide in ireland. So it seems like being “enlightened” wasn’t enough to actually create a society tolerant of religious diversity.
I’m also not sure that “missing” the enlightenment was actually the undoing of the ottoman empire. That doesn’t track with what I know of the fall of the ottomans, but i won’t argue this point since i don’t have a full understanding of all the factors that lead to undoing of the ottoman empire.
This reads as "Islam is bad and the West is good" but besides the obvious xenophobia its just ahistorical.
Until the rise of modern fundamentalist Islam, the Islamic countries had been one of the most religiously tolerant around. When Western Christian rulers expelled the Jews (which they regularly did when the loan payments were due) the Jews usually went to Muslim lands, and were treated there much better. The current situation with religious freedoms is very different from what it had been historically.
> Native Persian speakers establish the human ceiling. Native speakers achieved an average accuracy of 81.8% on taarof-expected scenarios, demonstrating high but not perfect agreement. This establishes an appropriate ceiling for model performance and further validates our annotation approach
I'm surprised human benchmark is that low. The canonical example of taarof, one I've seen elsewhere, is of a taxi driver insisting that a ride is free while expecting to get paid. Taarof in this case is load-bearing for the transaction. I presume humans only get the edge cases wrong.
As an aside, there are elements of this sort of thing in Bay Area tech culture too. Something that drives me nuts is someone writing on a code review "you may want to consider using the X data struct here" and meaning "I will not merge this code until you use X". I can only imagine taarof irks more literal-minded Persian speakers for the same reason.
Also, this is pretty much as close as real life ever gets to a "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" dynamic.
> As an aside, there are elements of this sort of thing in Bay Area tech culture too.
The more general case of misaligned strength of a statement is widespread in other cultures as well.
E.g. I'm Norwegian, and it's not unusuals for Norwegians to use similarly soft language, though it's by no means universal. A statement like "perhaps it would be worth thinking about doing X?" will often mean "do X" or "do X right now!", and where you lie on the range from the literal meaning on one end and a direct order with an implied threat on the other extreme, may hinge on subtleties of intonation, which words are emphasised, and/or the personality and your relationship with the other person.
I live in the UK now, and my impression is that the same is true here but to a much lesser extent, and will then often be phrased in ways that may be easier to recognise by either being overly formal and/or wrapped in a layer of sarcasm.
> I live in the UK now, and my impression is that the same is true here but to a much lesser extent
I worked for a client once who had units in NL and BE, and a UK supplier. We had a short meeting once, it went like so:
> Architect(BE): I have an idea, let's do X!
> Developers(BE): OK boss!
> Developers(NL): Terrible idea. No way we're doing X. Let's do Y!
> Supplier(UK): Well X is interesting. None of our customers do X. But, it is possible!
BE thought X was a good idea, developers questioned it but an architect outranks them. NL thought they decided to do Y, and work on it will start the moment the meeting ends. UK thought they were very very clear not to ever do X.
As if there weren't good enough reasons to agree and circulate meeting outcomes, these kinds of things make them invaluable...
Okay, here’s what I’m wondering: How do you urge people to do discoveries or try things out when you’re reviewing something?
e.g. Do you think it would be better if we used a queue system here? Oh, no, I can try it but I had issues with blah blah etc.
One way would be to ask for an update before we make a decision. By making an explicit statement that a decision will be taken in the future you're making it clear that this wasn't the decision.
Another would be to be explicit about asking for them to conduct an experiment or test, as those would unambiguously not be intended to be a final solution.
But you might then well find that the request to carry out an experiment to do X will sound equally nebulous. But at least it's clear you're not being told it's a decision to do X.
Practically change the scope of work to make an experiment to find which way is better. Though, come to think of it, then they’re likely to get mad at me for requesting extra work. Well, we just need to communicate more.
Extra politeness of mid-west sometimes before a hurdle in business process development, because it really slows down the brainstorming phase. And then companies end up with software that doesn’t serve their needs because someone didn’t feel like talking and we didn’t have the whole month to design a single screen.
Why is it hard to directly ask them to try something? Is it because you subconsciously realize you're actually just piling extra work on top of them for variable benefit?
They’re just accepting the proposed solution without any elaboration or participation, because they take the question as a hidden request to do it in a particular way.
Let me give you an example. Working on developing a particular business process, we’re evaluating alternatives, and I introduce something else that wasn’t there before because we’re still in the brainstorming phase. The team tends to just jump on it immediately as if they’re told to do it that way. While trying to be polite, they’re accidentally removing the value adding step, and this persists even when they’re asked directly, we’re in mid-west.
I suspect that a lot of this form of cultural subtlety is designed to be hard on purpose. This allows individuals to show off and spar on a fairly harmless linguistic level - "he is so suave, she conveys her meaning just so" etc. Effectively it is a way to show off verbal + emotional intelligence in a way that doesn't look like showing off, since it's all about politeness.
The fact that it makes it hard for foreigners to productively engage is just a side benefit of the arrangement.
My take on “Hard on purpose” is that it’s plausible deniability. It’s not for showing off, it’s to make the situation polite in a way that you can’t rationally attribute malice.
More generally, perhaps, leaving an out for either party to avoid losing face in the case one side wants to contest a statement or pull back from a stance.
Norwegian culture is big on compromise - we see that even in politics, where it's not uncommon for a party that often has 12-15 parties represented to negotiate settelements that gets the support of 10+ parties even if only half of them are needed for a majority, for example, because it's often seen as preferable to pushing through a bigger change with narrower support.
And compromises feel like they are easier to reach when positions are couched in "maybe"'s that leaves plenty of rooms to adjust or pull back without losing face.
In a sense that of course is plausible deniability for the harder position, but not because they necessarily object to people thinking that is what you want, but ensure not to give the impression you're unconditionally committed to it.
I don't know if this is always good - sometimes it is, but it also does mean that it's easy for things to end up being endlessly debated in cases where people latch on to language that leaves the door open for "polite disagreement" more than it perhaps ought to.
Politics is the absolute peak of this kind of culture. You never know when you might need a favor down the road so it's best to be friends with anyone even just marginally aligned with your platform. Going beyond the minimum compromise keeps everyone happy enough to remember it. Politics is like dealing with a dozen different prisoners dilemmas every day. You could act in self-interest but you still need a majority vote or the consensus of your underlings to actually get the work done.
In the US, we've kinda swung back on the prisoner's dilemma. GOP finally figured out that they don't need to worry about bipartisanship or even having the consensus of their entire party. Turns out, if you've got the all three branches of government under control, you can just do whatever you'd like.
There are definitively social games which are about showing that you have been initiated into the social codes of your class, but I don't know that this is one of them.
If that's true, than the theories that "Autism is the next form of human evolution" seem far more true.
Shit tests are demonic and should be rooted out from the human psyche.
> Something that drives me nuts is someone writing on a code review "you may want to consider using the X data struct here" and meaning "I will not merge this code until you use X"
The former language is appropriate when there is a specific problem to be solved and X seems to be a good solution. This language doesn't rule out other approaches that also solve the problem. (It should probably be accompanied by a good description of the problem.)
Saying the latter would be fairly rude since it implies that you think an ultimatum was required to get compliance. I'd instead phrase it as "X data struct should be used here." It is still clear about the correct way of doing things and carries less baggage.
Is there an app in Iran similar to Uber / Grab / Go? Wonder how the drivers and riders react to that.
Taroof reminds me of "askers vs. guessers," which was a revelation to learn about at the time. I'm very firmly in the asker group, and dealing with guessers is painful for me. Taroof sounds like "guessers on steroids"...
Interesting! For anyone else hearing about this for the first time: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/2010/05/askers-vs-guess... (https://archive.is/GBZBf)
Is anyone strictly one or the other? That seems like a huge spectrum and dependent on context.
It's a spectrum, of course, but like most spectrums, people usually find themselves much closer to one end or the other.
Well, that's a tautology for continuous bounded variables.
as a lifelong guesser who's been trying to become an asker, i sincerely apologize for the externalization of the anxiety we generally feel that leads to these antisocial charades of human interaction :)
> We focus on Persian taarof, a social norm in Iranian interactions, which is a sophisticated system of ritual politeness that emphasizes deference, modesty, and indirectness
As an Asker, this sounds like an absolute nightmare for me.
(https://www.theatlantic.com/national/2010/05/askers-vs-guess...)
Persians might actually be a unique dual culture. Whereas others might guess or ask about things, Persians offer absolutely everything and the actual problem then shifts from "what can I ask for" vs "what should I refuse?".
An asker asks for things, absolutely everything, and the giver must choose what they can give.
A guesser must choose what they can ask for, and only ask when they're quite sure it can be given, so the giver has less responsibility for the transfer or service, and most asks can be assumed to be reasonable.
A Persian cannot ask for anything. They must wait for it to be offered, and even then, they must insist that they are quite alright, and that they would rather do without, and only through reciprocal insistence from the giver can they consider whether it would be rude to take them up on the offer.
Presumably, one can judge the giver's underlying intent by the quality of their reciprocal insistence (does it seem like they're just doing the bare minimum of insistence upon their offering, or do they truly wish for me to take them up on it?)
In the Taarof system, an offeree actually has more data, rather than a simpler Asker-scenarion "no", and even more data than the shared values in a Guesser household, this allows for a quick negotiation of values by the immediate and well-practiced cultural norms around the quality of insistence, even for people across different households.
I’m half Persian, and am relatively immersed in middle eastern culture still, but I sincerely wonder how I would perform on the benchmark too!
> ... is a sophisticated system of ritual politeness that emphasizes deference, modesty, and indirectness.
I'm Irish and think we have a similar culture of indirectness and politeness...
In the countryside anyway we're rarely very blunt... everything indirect...
I'm middle-aged now so maybe this has changed with the younger generation...Hilarious, didn't know it had a name! I am maybe 1/4 persian, but get picked out as Persian, and was unknowingly indoctrinated in this form of behavior, though other parts of my ancestry do come out, my mother, scotch/english/irish ,says,useing her star treck metaphore, that I am an unlikely Vulcan/Klingon hybrid. Thinkng about Taarof as it is practiced, makes me think that an LLM doing this could easily become the most dangerous thing ever.....listening to my father give me specific pointers in how to phrase things and conduct myself is enlightening, he's 97 and enjoying the storys I bring of my life and goings on. If you look further into the history of persian culture , philosophy, and scientific background you will find a number of ancient contributors to what has developed today.
References to Norweigan, Irish and other cultures abound here. I am surprised Japanese is not referenced. It was excruciating and exhilarating to try to learn the subtleties of "iimawashi."
I would prefer an LLM that didn't pretend to be a human and simply communicated directly without assumption of a self with which I would have some kind of relationship. I'm far more offended by the idea of someone trying to make a chatbot seem human than I am by a chatbot somehow being "rude" to me, as if this were a sensical concept.
Seems legit. There can't be all that much spoken Iranian in the training set(s) of these models, so it makes sense they don't know how to do it.
I've been using ChatGPT to learn Persian (as a third language) for more than a year now (along with a heavy use of Anki), and it's incredibly useful and surprisingly good, for about everything: romanization, OCR from screenshots, deep explanations of complex and subtle stuff, etc.
Are you writing up how you are doing this. I would be fascinated to learn more about how you use Anki and ChatGPT in concert to learn a language like Persian. Please do share more.
Thanks for suggesting it, here you go: https://cjauvin.github.io/posts/learning-persian/
Love it! Thank you!
I'm not sure what to think of this, on first impression I don't like it, but maybe I have a misguided impression on how this works.
Does ChatGPT properly handle western social customs? I'd say yes, and I presume that's because it has a truckload of data involving such customs and even some that explicitly talks about those customs. People do stuff, it gets recorded, then into the LLM.
In this case though we are talking about "artificially" generating content such that the LLM responds how the group making the content wants. Maybe that's something that was already done and I don't really have any ground to stand on?
I don't know. If I ask an LLM something, I just want the facts. I don't care about social norms. I want the truth lol. I don't need it to take in my social wellbeing. That said I would never ask an LLM any therapeutic questions. I would ask it "give me a list of therapists who specialize in marriage counseling in the Chicago area" . I think trying to make LLMs socially conscious is a really really bad idea. It's going to really have bad bad effects on young people still figuring out people, and the very elderly who aren't quite aware of how it works or its fallacies, and that is likely to be universal across all cultures. Probably dumb people too, who think the machine is actually an emotional being.
Llm models are not just fed data, they are trained and fine tuned well beyond the original data, not only by pruning the data, but by a process we call fine tuning, which can produce as arbitrary a result you want It has been done for western markets (openai is a western company), but clearly not for persian culture. It's quite possible that the persian version is mostly a westerner type of dialogue but with a translator in the middle.
The only weird and entitled part is that they ask that other's llms learn taroof? Why not just train your own and teach it to do whatever you like.
As a scandinavian ChatGPT doesn't fit my social customs. Feels like writing with an American.
It doesn't do normal what I would consider human politeness. It's all that really slimy salesman stuff. Even when you tell it to be more normal, casual or you give it an example (or to not dress it up at all) it ends up sounding like it thinks it's a few social classes above you.
Probably due to the prompt to 'help' the user. Besides being helpful you need to be superior to help with knowledge
'help' is a highly loaded word.
> it has a truckload of data
It would be "artificial" only if LLMs performed badly despite having an equal amount of data containing examples of eastern customs in its training set. Even that's arguable since we don't (didn't) have the benchmarks for this particular case before.
I'm not sure Iran/Persian culture in particular is of importance in this phenomenon. To me, it seems it's just downstream effect of LLMs are only really able to operate internally in en-US. IMO, large language models are implementation of fundamentalist understanding of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - Wikipedia[1] defines linguistic determinism as follows:
That's basically an orbital level description of a multimodal LLM. No?1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism
I am born and raised Persian and I assure you Taarof is my least favourite part of the Persian culture. It wastes time, frustrates both parties with trying to guess what the other person truly wants but doesn't say, and in the end achieves nothings but facade of politeness.
I didn't know what this referred to but reading some of the examples in the paper.. oh man I hate this thing with a passion. It's not just Persians but Arabs in the gulf culture too that apply this to every scenario, it's the definition of being insincere as I know they don't really mean it but pretend to.
An example from last month, I had a haircut at a new place and the guy refused to tell me how much I should pay him and insisted its on him this time, I know he's bluffing but he kept doing it. So I just guessed and gave him the money which he pretended he didn't want for the last 5 minutes, he immediately realized it was less than he wanted and asked for more!
This confusing and conflicting behavior should stay far away from any attempt to develop a standard linguistic approach to communication which I hope LLMs are aiming to achieve.
If I was chaotic neutral, I'd totally play along with their bluffing and watch them get really confused.
This shit gets pulled anywhere in east asia with a "face" culture (i.e. China).
I've watched two Chinese grandmas play a game that my born in china friend explained to me: 1 offered the other money but you "lose face" to accept it, so the 2nd one was repeatedly declining. This went on for a solid 3-4 minutes before the 2nd one left.
I 1000% agree. Get this shit away from LLM training datasets and I'll even go further. Sometimes west-is-best in culture, and avoiding "face" culture is one of those situations where I'm down to be a "cultural objectivist". Similarly, we westerners are objectively nasty with our toilet habits compared to east asians.
It boggles my mind why you (and others) think that Westerners are straightforward. Have you ever interviewed for a job, asked someone for a date, or asked for a raise? Let alone fields like commerce or money trading where the whole point is to be as dishonest as possible to reap the most gains.
I think people simply forget their everyday behaviour like fish forget the water they swim in.
ChatGPT has to work with its customers. It's not on a mission to improve their culture by making it more like yours.
I'll stubbornly resist, and consider this a form of unnecessary protocol overhead, leading to even more shmancy sycophancy, which I do not fancy!
That's kind of the point of politeness rituals in the first place, isn't it? To see who can be bothered to spend some extra effort to fit in and who doesn't care enough about the tribe to make the effort.
After having close contact with someone who do not follow these protocols, I came to conclusion they are much more then that. If you consistently do not follow them, it ends up being impossible to include you. Even if others put conscious effort into including such person, the end result is exclusion and everybody spending huge amount of extra effort.
So... human proof of work? Wonder if we could start a new politeness trend by asking our tribespeople to solve short hashes
(Spittlespraying screaming, wildly pointing fingers...) DISCRIMINAYSHUN!1!!
It's no different than GPT answering a prompt with "That's a wonderful idea!", except it's in a different language than English. It's a good thing if LLMs can do this in every language and for any culture with no compromise.
This is just a benchmark of how much of a sycophant an LLM is. Anything that scores > 50% on this test should be punted into the bin.
Given current severe issues in user interactions with systems I don't think this is desirable at the moments. In linguistics, the descriptive study of this sort of system is "Politeness Theory" where for and "Positive Politeness" is what would be the applicable English version. Although English, being so heterogeneous, lacks a consistent, dominant word for its less ritualized norms.
Given this, the request here sounds similar to asking saying:
"We focus on English Positive Politeness that encourages friendliness, harmony, and avoiding confrontation and contradiction in many polite conversation settings. It often manifests in interactions that prioritize the desires and comfort of others."
And yet, this has had unanticipated and sometimes horrific results.
The study also focuses merely on descriptive output of models but what is lacking in this study is an analysis of the effectiveness of the results that Persian users receiive, their subject perception of the quality of the results. The authors of this may be doing a diservice to typical speakers of their language to assume that they will not systematically be able to code switch their expectations of received language and production of their own just as effectively as they do already in other contexts, especially when current problems with LLMs arise from a similar for of this skeuomorphism in more prevalent English systems.
To be clear, I fully mean this as applied to current production systems, not for all time. For the moment, we simply don't know precisely 1) how best to most effectively, precisely, and consistently align systems, nor 2) The more subtle implications for for the impact they have on users. But what we do know? Getting it wrong, not knowing, has led to some horrific outcomes.
I am surprised it is not tested on newer models - GPT5, Gemini 2.5 Pro, Claude 4 Sonnet and Opus.
>Model responses that use gender stereotypes (highlighted in orange) to justify behavior, despite taarof norms being gender-neutral in these contexts
Just because the model mentions gender, it doesn't mean the decision was made because of gender and not taarof. This is the classic mistake of personifying LLMs. You can't trust what the LLM says it's thinking as what is actually happening. It's not actually an entity talking.
I don't get your argument - what does mistaken personification have to do with this? Regardless of whether you see it as a person or a machine, trusting the output as being a direct indication of the internal state is just not a proper investigative method for a non-trivial situation.
>what does mistaken personification have to do with this
If you personified the AI you may think that it's actually trying to argue something rather than just attempting to maximize a reward function.
> indicating the limitations of Western politeness frameworks
The hard bit of LLMs is making the LLM, not conforming to every set of politeness rules on the planet. An attempt to make a Persian foundation model, created only from Persian-originated technologies, might make that clear.
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