Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

What Hacker News says

1. sjbzbeiksSep 2026
   yeah I mean it just depends on time horizons, if you bought at 117k you are hurting now if you need the money ASAP.

   Also, I gotta say I do not think Bitcoin is a bubble or whatever (IMO a real value there), but really this sort of site makes it seem like it is a bubble with the sort of "blind to history" boosterism.

   Go read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, or Market Wizards series, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, or any number of books about financial history and there are endless people saying 'it will never die and all the doubters are just wrong' before any big market crash.

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2. borziMay 2026
   It's not different. If you haven't already, read "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds".
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3. subjectivationxOct 2025
   You are spot on and summed it up perfectly.

   I am using language models as much as anyone and they work but they don't work the way the marketing and popular delusion behind them is pretending they work.

   The best book on LLMs and agentic AI is Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay.

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4. therobots927Jun 2024
   The current hype phase is straight out of “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”

   Science is out the window. Groupthink and salesmanship are running the show right now. There would be a real irony to it if we find out the whole AI industry drilled itself into a local minimum.

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5. FFP999Nov 2023
   But on the other hand, I can think of a few books that really might have helped him. The Emperor's New Clothes, and also Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds (dated now, still a good read).
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6. gregjorMay 2023
   Searching for the elixir of life doesn't qualify as uncommon. You can find people lusting after longer life through all of history. The longest chapter in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds documents just some of the more recent mania. Instead of a magic powder or tincture, now we have supplements.

   It strikes me as vain and narcissistic, to say nothing of the irony of devoting so much time and energy now to live longer.

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