Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

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konstava
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Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by konstava »

If we never get selected for the show, does our knowledge add any value to our life? It won't help us to get a better job. Is it even worth mentioning outside of this board?

When lawyers pass BAR exam or accountants pass CPA exam, it opens up a clear path to financial rewards, respect, stability. What opens up after passing Jeopardy test??? In 99.9% of cases the answer is NOTHING.

For example, I'm a connoisseur of architecture. In other words, I have lots of trivia style knowledge on architecture. However, I don't have a college degree in architecture nor do I want to be an architect. As a reslt, my knowledge rarely goes beyond the kitchen table. I cannot really take advantage of it. I bet we can all share similar stories. That sounds sad to me.

Conclusion: there is no market for our skills. There is no mechanism in this world where we can exchange our type of knowledge for a reward every day, like lawyers or doctors do.

Just imagine for a second if there was.
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naurae29
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by naurae29 »

konstava wrote:When lawyers pass BAR exam... it opens up a clear path to financial rewards, respect, stability.
Damn, really? I am doing this indigent criminal defense thing all wrong.

P.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2M-SeKey4o
Last edited by naurae29 on Sat Jan 23, 2016 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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OSXpert
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by OSXpert »

Hey, I win token prizes at pub trivias almost every week!

But more seriously:

A) As long as you don't do it too much, peppering some trivia into conversations every now and then can make you a better conversationalist.

B) If trivia is your hobby, you get an intrinsic benefit from knowing trivia and taking the Jeopardy! test. It's fun to learn new things and its fun to do well on things.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by triviawayne »

It's self satisfaction, I can mostly hold a conversation with anyone about anything, I am viewed as a valuable asset at work partly because of the knowledge i have through trivia.

I can solve many of life's little problems because of it. It is not just about being able to name all the states in 20 seconds, it's about applying knowledge from many areas into whatever I'm doing at the moment.

As far as jobs, it did lead me to hosting a local trivia night years ago, and I've recently decided to do it again, and I'm sure having the experience will help me get started in that endeavor.
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Batraxos
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by Batraxos »

konstava wrote: does our knowledge add any value to our life?
Depends on your definition of value.
I enjoy trivia and learning. I'm a librarian, and this hobby does help with my job. But it is also FUN.
In a perfect world, teachers, who benefit greatly from enjoying trivia, would be paid more than sports players.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by Golf »

Lots of people outside this board care about my trivia knowledge. Doubtful anybody on this board cares though. :o
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by dhkendall »

I would say so. At job interviews, I always make a point to mention (when asked) that one of my hobbies is "learning", which is definitely related to my trivia bent and a good job skill to have.
"Jeopardy! is two parts luck and one part luck" - Me

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konstava
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by konstava »

naurae29 wrote:
konstava wrote:When lawyers pass BAR exam... it opens up a clear path to financial rewards, respect, stability.
Damn, really? I am doing this indigent criminal defense thing all wrong.

P.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2M-SeKey4o
Ken Jennings is a standalone exception. You cannot count him.

Replying to one of the posts above: by "adding value to life" I meant a tangible value.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by davey »

konstava wrote:If we never get selected for the show, does our knowledge add any value to our life? It won't help us to get a better job. Is it even worth mentioning outside of this board?

When lawyers pass BAR exam or accountants pass CPA exam, it opens up a clear path to financial rewards, respect, stability. What opens up after passing Jeopardy test??? In 99.9% of cases the answer is NOTHING.

For example, I'm a connoisseur of architecture. In other words, I have lots of trivia style knowledge on architecture. However, I don't have a college degree in architecture nor do I want to be an architect. As a reslt, my knowledge rarely goes beyond the kitchen table. I cannot really take advantage of it. I bet we can all share similar stories. That sounds sad to me.

Conclusion: there is no market for our skills. There is no mechanism in this world where we can exchange our type of knowledge for a reward every day, like lawyers or doctors do.


Just imagine for a second if there was.
You might as well be talking about a liberal arts education. I'm proud of having one, and it's served me well in making a living.
Leave out the word trivia, and "does our knowledge add any value to our life?" has an easy answer. A deep knowledge of architecture doesn't strike me as trivial. Some people are architectural historians and critics.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by davey »

Golf wrote:Lots of people outside this board care about my trivia knowledge. Doubtful anybody on this board cares though. :o
I agree with this. Everybody here shares (you might even say overshares) an interest. We don't surprise each other. My quest to get on Jeopardy! has been a source of conversation many times with intelligent people who, for whatever reason, don't share the desire but enjoy hearing about it.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by Woof »

My ability with trivia was not obtained by poring over compendiums of trivia at night. It's the result of a lifetime of reading and a freakishly good memory. Have those skills added tangible value to my life? You bet your sweet bippy they have :mrgreen:
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by konstava »

Woof wrote:My ability with trivia was not obtained by poring over compendiums of trivia at night. It's the result of a lifetime of reading and a freakishly good memory. Have those skills added tangible value to my life? You bet your sweet bippy they have :mrgreen:
Tangible is material. So have you ever got paid directly for it?
konstava
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by konstava »

There is no place that pays directly for your knowledge alone. Except Quiz Shows...
Last edited by konstava on Sat Jan 23, 2016 12:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
konstava
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by konstava »

You might as well be talking about a liberal arts education. I'm proud of having one, and it's served me well in making a living.
Leave out the word trivia, and "does our knowledge add any value to our life?" has an easy answer. A deep knowledge of architecture doesn't strike me as trivial. Some people are architectural historians and critics.[/quote]

Architectural historians make less then bank clerks.
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Holocene Hero
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by Holocene Hero »

konstava wrote:If we never get selected for the show, does our knowledge add any value to our life? It won't help us to get a better job. Is it even worth mentioning outside of this board?
I fundamentally disagree with just about every sentence in the original post, but this one I can at least directly oppose with anecdotal evidence.

While I always tried going out of my way to watch Jeopardy growing up, I didn't watch it start watching it intently Monday through Friday until freshman year of college. I was scared of being 'undeclared', so I had decided to declare as a computer science major (even though my coding skills were pretty terrible) because that was the 'safe' thing to do and I wanted a direction in life that wouldn't lead to abject poverty.

Anyways, with Jeopardy, the more I watched, the better I got of course, but I realized that Geography questions were my kryptonite. If the clue had river, sea, mountain, etc. it was almost guaranteed I'd guess wrong. So I decided to brush up -- first with lots of Sporcle quizzes and then watching the National Parks series on PBS and the BBC Planet Earth series. I found this stuff really interested me, so come spring semester I decided to enroll in an intro Geology class and almost instantly fell in love. Surely enough, I ended up changing majors the next semester and now I'm through my junior year as a Geology major. I'm not quite sure this would've been the plan had I not gotten a small obsession with a trivia-based game show.

Ultimately, trivia encourages you to learn information that serves all walks of life, and learning at least the base information of every field of knowledge, you get a better scope of the world around you and the choices you can make.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by Spaceman Spiff »

It might not help you get a better job, but it might help to get a job. I had to hit the job market at the end of 2014 (after 16 years), and used an agency to help find work. I brought up the Jeopardy! appearance, and they "volunteered" that information to the people I'm working for now.

It might not have made a difference, but it didn't hurt, especially since it came up from a third party.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by ihavejeoprosy »

The problem with your argument is that you're confusing hobby with a career. Accounting and law education prepares you for a career while trivia is a hobby for most of us. There are plenty of hobbies that are pursued without any monetary reward.

I pursue trivia as a hobby simply because I enjoy facts about a number of things. I have found that trivia knowledge and learning has helped me process and retain information in other spheres.

As has been mentioned elsewhere in the thread, knowledge about various subjects has helped me meet people and participate in conversations about diverse fields.

There are also a number of restaurants in town where I haven't paid a cent for a meal for many years because I use winnings from pub trivia toward my tab. Not too shabby for a reward.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by Johnblue »

I usually win $50 every Tuesday TAX-FREE!!!!!!
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This Is Kirk!
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by This Is Kirk! »

konstava wrote:Conclusion: there is no market for our skills. There is no mechanism in this world where we can exchange our type of knowledge for a reward every day, like lawyers or doctors do.
There is a market. It's very small, but there is one.

I would think most of us would say "who cares?" We're into trivia because we enjoy trivia, not because it's going to make any of us rich. If we can win a few bucks at pub quiz nights or on a show like Jeopardy! it's a nice bonus, but I doubt it's the reason most of us make it a point to learn these things.
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TheSunWillComeOut
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by TheSunWillComeOut »

konstava wrote:For example, I'm a connoisseur of architecture. In other words, I have lots of trivia style knowledge on architecture. However, I don't have a college degree in architecture nor do I want to be an architect. As a reslt, my knowledge rarely goes beyond the kitchen table. I cannot really take advantage of it. I bet we can all share similar stories. That sounds sad to me.

Conclusion: there is no market for our skills. There is no mechanism in this world where we can exchange our type of knowledge for a reward every day, like lawyers or doctors do.
Well, no, because in order to get money for something, you generally need to provide a good or a service. Architects design buildings. Lawyers represent clients. Doctors heal the sick. What does trivia offer in terms of material contribution? In olden days, the village "Wise Man" or "Wise Woman" at least had the purpose of serving as a repository for knowledge that wouldn't be easily accessible to illiterate farmers and craftsmen. Nowadays, pretty much everyone can read and look things up on the internet. So unless you ARE willing to train yourself to the specialist level within a certain subject (at which point, you could always go into academia), what are you offering that's deserving of pay?

Quite frankly, the fact that the game-show circuit continues to exist as an option for making money on the side at this is a better reward than we ought to have. Past that, yeah, sure, I'd like to get paid living wages to read novels or play Spider Solitaire all day, but that's something which only benefits my own life, so why would I possibly expect that to work out for me? That's not sad, it's just life.
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