Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds
by Charles Mackay · first published 2009
14mentions
6recommended by
6HN commenters
2017–2026first – last mentioned
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
Classic 1852 history of financial manias and crowd behavior, including the John Law and Bitcoin-era parallels; plainly told and useful for anyone wanting to recognize recurring speculative bubbles and scams.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…"the old rules don’t apply any more", people get gullible and the ethically-challenged get creative. And a whole pile of old cons come back into the world. The best book ever written on Bitcoin is still Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, and that was written in 1841. Chapter 1 on tulip mania and chapter 2 on the South Sea bubble will seem eerily familiar. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
on “Crypto-currencies have lost 30% of their value in the last 3 weeks” ↗All the essays of Emerson, GK Chesterton, Hazlitt, Oscar Wilde, RL Stevenson, William James Every book by Nietzsche (except Zarathustra). La Bruyere - Characters Charles Mackay - Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?” ↗My first encounter with John Law's story was after reading Charles Mackay's 1852 "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518 It's plainly told and unsurprisingly familiar if you've followed the causes of any of the negligence entertained by the SEC this millennium.
on “The Scotsman and his stories brought France much prosperity, for a time” ↗"Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm Not a new phenomena, but rather a reminder of what civilizations often offer. =3
on “Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube” ↗…https://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_10:_Rules_for_Dev... 7. https://www.nist.gov/pml/owm/laboratory-metrology/metrology-... 8. https://www.mitutoyo.com/training-education/ 9. "Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm ) The artifacts are usually beautiful from good Workmanship Standards, Design For Manufacturability, and systematic Metrology.…
on “Ask HN: What are the best engineering blogs with real-world depth?” ↗> it's a form of mania Correct. The history is rife with examples of manias taking hold of societies, I recommend "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay[1], it's an absolutely fascinating book. [1]https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
on “Software Engineering Is Back” ↗…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pc3IuVNuO0 The articles posted UFO cult study reference is part of the reading list. =3 "On Liberty" (John Stuart Mill, 1859) https://gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm "Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm "The Evolution of Cooperation" (Robert Axelrod, ) https://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/Breakthrough/book/pdfs/axel...
on “I swear the UFO is coming any minute” ↗For the tulip mania, as well as other manias, I very strongly recommend: "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay[1] Very informative and a very enjoyable read. [1] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
on “Tulip mania: when a single flower was worth more than a house” ↗See "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" (public domain on Gutenburg[0]) for both of these and more! [0]http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
on “Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say” ↗…burdening taxpayers by eating community electrical and water infrastructure. In terms of business, it is not sustainable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8TDOFqkQA The hype-cycle is nothing new =3 "Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm
on “OpenAI needs to raise at least $207B by 2030” ↗Energy is finite, and asking the public to fund a private firms irrational project is unethical. "Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm I look forwards to buying the failed data center assets. LLM make great search engines, but are not the path to "AGI".…
on “The No Fakes Act Has a "Fingerprinting" Trap That Kills Open Source” ↗…standards of Americans is bid down. Individuals can't fix irrational movements, but one may profit from its predictable outcome. We look forwards to stripping data centers for discounted GPUs. =3 "Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm
on “The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat” ↗It is hardly a new problem =3 "Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm
on “Claude Code wiped our production database with a Terraform command” ↗…Individuals can't stop trends, but one may profit from the predictable nature of both the unscrupulous and hapless. "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered" as they say on wall-street. =3 "Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm "A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Upf_B9RLQ
on “Oracle may slash up to 30k jobs to fund AI data-centers as US banks retreat” ↗