Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

An 1841 book about mass hysteria, money crazes, and wildly bad ideas has landed in front of modern readers, and the comment section immediately turned it into a mirror for the present. Charles Mackay’s Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds walks through tulip mania, witch hunts, alchemy, prophecy scams, beard politics, and more — basically a greatest-hits album of humanity losing the plot. It’s free, public domain, and suddenly feels way too current for comfort.

The strongest reaction? A giant, nervous “uh-oh, here we go again” aimed at today’s AI stock boom. One commenter dryly noted that people are reportedly borrowing money to pile into AI stocks right now, which gives the whole thread a delicious sense of history repeating itself with better branding. Another took the broader, harsher view: people have always been like this, full stop. That fatalistic shrug became the mood of the room.

But the community also got personal. One reader said psychology classes shattered their confidence in their own rationality, turning the discussion from “look at those foolish crowds” into “wait… am I the crowd?” That’s the real sting here. And for pure comedy, commenters were obsessed with the South Sea Bubble story about investors lining up to fund “an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is” — which, let’s be honest, sounds like the kind of pitch that would still get posted on social media today. The verdict from the crowd? Mackay didn’t just write history — he wrote the comment section in advance.