The Delusions Of Crowds Quotes

“Manifestly, man is the ape that imitates, tells stories, seeks status, morally condemns others, and yearns for the good old days, all of which guarantee a human future studded with religious and financial mass manias.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“If you want to convince someone, target their System 1 with narrative, not their System 2 with facts and data.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“a high degree of narrative transportation impairs one’s critical facilities.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“Although there is a limit beyond which belief will not withstand disconfirmation, it is clear that the introduction of contrary evidence can serve to increase the conviction and enthusiasm of the believer.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“human phenomenon: our species’ preference for “positively skewed outcomes”—ones with low-probability but enormous payoffs, even if the average of all payoffs is negative.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“Beginning in the eighteenth century, entire nations would seek succor not from God, but rather from Mammon, as a succession of financial mass delusions swept through Europe. On their surfaces, the religious and financial events appear to represent different phenomena, but they were powered by the same social and psychological mechanisms: the irresistible power of narratives; the human proclivity to imagine patterns where there were none; the overweening hubris and overconfidence of both their leaders and followers; and, above all, the overwhelming proclivity of human beings to imitate the behavior of those around them, no matter how factually baseless or self-destructive.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“That is, we are hardwired to detect relationships where often none exist, a tendency science writer Michael Shermer has labeled “patternicity.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“Psychologist Richard Gerrig defines a narrative as a device that temporarily mentally transports the listener or reader away from their immediate surroundings; when it ends, they return to their surroundings “somewhat changed by the journey.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“While religious and financial manias might seem to have little in common, the underlying forces that give them rise are identical: the desire to improve one’s well-being in this life or the next. And the factors that amplify the contagion of financial and religious mass delusions are also similar: the hardwired human propensity to imitate, to fabricate and consume compelling narratives, and to seek status.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“Novelists and historians have known for centuries that people do not deploy the powerful human intellect to dispassionately analyze the world, but rather to rationalize how the facts conform to their emotionally derived preconceptions.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“understand bubbles and crashes in the same way. For example, their pathophysiology involves the vagaries of human psychology and the unstable supply of credit from a modern banking system. Their anatomy consists of the “four ps”: promoters, public, politicians, and press. Finally, their signs and symptoms include the contagious societal infatuation with nearly effortless wealth, the hubris of the promoters, and their veneration by the public.366”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“Von Kerssenbrock, a loyal Catholic, sniffed that Rothmann preached “not so much with solid arguments as with clumsy aspersions. The ignorant commoners, however, who cannot distinguish eloquence from bombast, thought that he had spoken excellently.”107”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“The commercial banker performs three near-sacred functions central to any capitalist society: the safeguarding of other people’s money; the provision of working capital to businesses, without which the economy cannot function; and the creation of money. By contrast, the investment banker sells stocks and bonds to the public, a much riskier and morally more ambiguous activity.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“The primary function of financial capitalism is to efficiently funnel money from those with an excess of it to those who need it.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“Disconfirmation of deeply held beliefs causes severe psychic pain; what better way of alleviating it than in the company of newly won believers? As put by Festinger, “If more and more people can be persuaded that the system of belief is correct, then clearly it must, after all, be correct.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

“nuclei accumbens fire not only with reward, but even more intensely with its anticipation, be it culinary, sexual, social, or financial.”
― William J. Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups