Triviality, much like the significance of the placebo effect,
   usually has backwards emphasis.
   The placebo effect is more powerful than most medicines, because
   more illness responds to belief/things-being-just-as-they-are.
   That is why it is the baseline against which all medicines are
   compared.

   The same is true for triviality. "Compared to all things being
   equal, I present to you this alternative formula which should
   prove more interesting".

   This is because in a closed Universe - and mathematics is a
   closed Universe - everything balances out.

   To me, education on such matters should start off with the power
   of baseline "upon which all things are compared against as being
   an improvement."

   In a similar fashion, the answer that is always correct is "I
   don't know".

   That is the base upon which "I know" is compared against. "I
   don't know" is always more powerful. i don't know why it took me
   40+ years to figure that out, but perhaps it's because, like a
   magic show, my attention was misdirected by people who didn't
   know they were part of a magic show. The magicians, of course,
   died long ago.