How we answer questions (Patreon)

A recent guest on the show asked how we always have something to say about every topic, and whether we do research in advance, so I (brandon) thought it might be interesting to discuss the sort of rhythm we've fallen into when answering questions on the show.

First of all, we definitely do not have the questions in advance so can rarely do research (frank sometimes does some on the fly). That's why you might hear us leaning on the same few games for certain examples.

In general the way we answer questions quickly is:
1) if one of us (me or frank), has something to say right away, we'll start in first.
2) if it's clear neither of us has something to say immediately, or of one of us suspects the other will have trouble with the topic, one of us will start in with some sort of spacer/pontification about what the question means.

Both of these give the other folks on the show time to think about an answer and come up with something better. We can't always get there with it but that's sort of a subconscious rhythm we've fallen into.

If all of that fails, we wind up just talking about whatever we can think of that's tangentially related to the question as our brains cast around for things to discuss on the subject.

I hadn't really thought about it like this until our guest asked us, but it does seem we've fallen into a rhythm of "bluff or attack" which gives the rest of the panel time to think. And it kinda works!?

Obviously the REAL answer, of course, is that Esper just edits it to make us sound smart.