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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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Somehow in my career, I ended up being in a position to be in the room for many private conferences. One of the things that was particularly obvious to me is how human (in the worst sense) the elite "speaker" circuit is.

People imagine those kind of conferences as a meeting of powerful people exchanging important insights, but few of them were more interesting than what you'd hear on a very average TV fluff interview. Maybe one of them was at a level of discussion that would be comparable to what we have going here. In a couple of cases I even realized that I, the IT guy babysitting the tech setup, knew more about the topic than the speaker did, nevermind the attendees. Pretty much always the attendees' questions were shallow. It seemed obvious that the attendees, rich but unknown business leaders, were starstuck and enjoyed being in the same room as someone "famous". It certainly sound glamorous to drop into a conversation an aside about that time you were at a private conference of former prime ministers, VP, etc... I know I enjoy it.

In that context, Harris definitely can do that circuit if she wants. If she was just a failed presidential candidate, maybe the interest would fade fairly quickly. But I guarantee you there are lots of rich people who want to be able to say they were at a private conference of a former US Vice President, even if the presentation is just word salad about unburdening what has been. Having been Vice President, she can probably milk forever if wants.