To "They asked you because they wanted your take on it... Your context, your taste, your judgement." actually I'd ask even for more than that:

For any given <subject> I'd want:

- Your context - your taste - your judgement - clarify what bet <subject> encourages to support - be ready to elaborate your thesis of that bet

With that we have the basic complete building block that used one after another can model a basic lifecycle of a dialogue that can make progress towards something (a goal, a mission, something useful)