Comment by nostrademons
2 years ago
That's precisely what makes Western (and particularly American) culture an "ask" one, though. Ask cultures arise when you have a great diversity of individuals and can't make assumptions on their backgrounds, desires, or how they would interpret an interaction. Guess cultures arise when you have a long period of stability, and communities that form and persist over generations. When this happens, you can start to make consistent norms and then pass them down in childhood, so everyone in the community has a good sense of what's expected of them.
Bay Area startup culture is an extreme example of Bay Area culture in general, which is an extreme example of Western U.S. culture, which is an extreme example of American culture, which is an extreme example of general western European culture. But they're all marked by fluid, transient groupings of people that came from all over.
I see what you're getting at. My intention was to highlight that I don't believe Silicon Valley culture is synonymous with Bay Area culture. In my interactions with individuals who were raised in Northern California or even the Bay Area, I’ve seen a lot of “guess” culture fairly similar to the PNW.
To phrase it differently, a significant number of the people you’re thinking of probably wont establish lasting roots in the Bay and thus wouldn't be passing down that culture to the subsequent generation of Bay Area youngsters.
It's a thought-provoking query indeed though, pondering what characterizes the "prototypical San Franciscan" and how that might evolve over time!