Interestingly, Charles Mackay, the author of "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds", was himself one of the most ardent cheerleaders for the Railway Mania [0] “urging people to put their money into the railways and pooh-poohing those who were concerned.” and "He had become famous by mocking the bubbles of the past - but had rather less to say about the far more serious bubble that he himself had helped to inflate." [1]
This is a fun book, but it famously embellishes, exaggerates, and sensationalizes the tulip bubble [1]. The efficient markets people obviously don't like the story, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence that it happened on the same scale that Mackay portrays it.
Yes a lot of it was based on anti tulip propaganda pamphlets that circulated at the time, and survived more because they were more interesting due to the exaggerated stories.
Excellent book. The high point for me was the enterprising fellow who set up a stall in London during the South Sea Bubble (the original bubble!), allowing people to invest in "An undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." People lined up for a couple of days to give the fellow their money...after which the fellow disappeared, never to be seen again. No lies detected!
My intro to psychology classes was one of the most valuable classes I ever took, just with the way it systematically shattered my own notion of how much I could trust my own notions of perception and thought to be a rational and accurate reflection of reality. I definitely had a notion of how irrational “people” could be before that, but of course I somehow thought I was above all that.
Along similar lines, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith has a book on financial bubbles and irrational crowd mentalities in financial market over the centuries: A Short History of Financial Euphoria [1]. Short, approachable, and interesting.
Speaking of which, I noticed that the big market reversal during the beginning of the Iran war happened right around when ESLR requirements were due to relax. Is this a transmission mechanism for that? Did some of the big brokerages run a big promotion (0% APR on margin debt!) or something?
No, but it is about the, very expected, shitshow caused by the AI hype. When companies think cramming AI in any random place is a magic bullet for replacing workers, shit breaks. Because AI is dumb af. LLMs are just the shittiest of the ways to do it.
Interestingly, Charles Mackay, the author of "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds", was himself one of the most ardent cheerleaders for the Railway Mania [0] “urging people to put their money into the railways and pooh-poohing those who were concerned.” and "He had become famous by mocking the bubbles of the past - but had rather less to say about the far more serious bubble that he himself had helped to inflate." [1]
[0] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1927396 [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51311368
This is a fun book, but it famously embellishes, exaggerates, and sensationalizes the tulip bubble [1]. The efficient markets people obviously don't like the story, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence that it happened on the same scale that Mackay portrays it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#Modern_views
Yes a lot of it was based on anti tulip propaganda pamphlets that circulated at the time, and survived more because they were more interesting due to the exaggerated stories.
Excellent book. The high point for me was the enterprising fellow who set up a stall in London during the South Sea Bubble (the original bubble!), allowing people to invest in "An undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." People lined up for a couple of days to give the fellow their money...after which the fellow disappeared, never to be seen again. No lies detected!
My intro to psychology classes was one of the most valuable classes I ever took, just with the way it systematically shattered my own notion of how much I could trust my own notions of perception and thought to be a rational and accurate reflection of reality. I definitely had a notion of how irrational “people” could be before that, but of course I somehow thought I was above all that.
This is why my favorite book is Thinking, Fast & Slow. It blew my mind and totally made me think about almost everything differently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
Along similar lines, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith has a book on financial bubbles and irrational crowd mentalities in financial market over the centuries: A Short History of Financial Euphoria [1]. Short, approachable, and interesting.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/270746.A_Short_Histor...
Supposedly investors are leveraging/borrowing money to buy into AI stocks right now...
Oh, yeah, that's cooking lol: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGZ1FL663067003Q
Speaking of which, I noticed that the big market reversal during the beginning of the Iran war happened right around when ESLR requirements were due to relax. Is this a transmission mechanism for that? Did some of the big brokerages run a big promotion (0% APR on margin debt!) or something?
Margin debt (debt used to leverage stock buying) Is near record highs, and most of it is flowing into AI stocks ...
Ruh roh. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrkd41n2v9o
That's not about LLMs.
No, but it is about the, very expected, shitshow caused by the AI hype. When companies think cramming AI in any random place is a magic bullet for replacing workers, shit breaks. Because AI is dumb af. LLMs are just the shittiest of the ways to do it.
People have been people since there have been people.