As a technical engineer, I’ve learned the value of starting sentences with “basically”, even when I’m facing technical uncertainty. Basically, “basically” forces me to be simple.

Being trained to say words like “Alternatively”, “But…”, “Wait!”, “So,” … based on some metric of value in focusing / switching elsewhere / … is basically brilliant.

Right, these are not mere "filler words", but initialize specific reasoning paths.

Hmm... you may be onto something here.

Alternatively, these might not be "filler words", but instantiate paths of reasonsing.

What a strange comment chain.

Hmmm.

Interesting.

Interesting.