“Don’t Neglect the Thing That Makes You Weird” | People I (Mostly) Admire: Ken Jennings

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4.5 • 32.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2020

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

It was only in his late twenties that America’s favorite brainiac began to seriously embrace his love of trivia. Now he holds the “Greatest of All Time” title on Jeopardy! Steve Levitt digs into how he trained for the show, what it means to have a "geographic memory," and why we lie to our children.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, it's Stephen Dupner.
0:03.0	You are about to hear Steve Levitt in conversation with all-time Jeopardy Champion Ken Jennings.
0:08.7	It is my favorite episode yet of Levitt's new podcast, People I Mostly Admire.
0:14.9	It is also the last episode of People I Mostly Admire that you will get here in the
0:20.3	Freakonomics Radio feed.
0:21.8	So you should do what thousands of other people have already done.
0:25.3	So subscribe to People I Mostly Admire on any podcast app so that you get all future
0:31.5	episodes because Levitt is just getting started.
0:35.3	Thanks.
0:41.3	Somebody who thinks they have an unremarkable memory or a kid who can't learn their
0:44.3	time's tables, they still know every word of every song on their favorite album and
0:48.4	they know every player on the roster of their favorite team.
0:51.6	The memory is working just fine when engaged.
0:54.6	Like the people you see on Jeopardy tonight don't have photographing memories, that's not
0:57.3	a real thing.
0:58.3	They're just interested in like ten times the things you are and so more facts stick.
1:10.9	So everybody knows Ken Jennings, the amazing Jeopardy Champion, 74 straight wins, he won
1:17.1	the greatest of all time tournament.
1:19.4	But for me, that's just for the iceberg.
1:23.1	Welcome to People I Mostly Admire with Steve Levitt.
1:27.8	I once stumbled on one of his children's books, he writes books for nerdy 12 year olds.
1:32.9	And it was awesome, it was interesting.
	...

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