Thank you team, an excellent / comprehensive / terrifying / all too believable thread about the real consequences of Brexit - . Great work by @uk_domain_names! 1/11
This all is making me think of "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds", 'an early study of crowd psychology by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841' h/t @wikpedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordi… cc @campbellclaret 2/11
For me, Brexit belongs to 'Volume I: National Delusions', along with Dutch tulip mania; the South Sea company bubble. Sensibly, our cousins in Scotland are seeing clearly (and have learned from the Darien scheme IMHO). 3/11
So this is less a personal affliction, more like self-deception. Personal friends and business colleagues who are rounded and thoughtful seem - despite all the available evidence - willing to think that all will be well. It's intriguing, probably in an unfortunate way. 4/11
Some quotes which seems distressingly familiar e.g.
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." 5/11
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." 5/11
"Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome." 6/11
"We go out of our course to make ourselves uncomfortable; the cup of life is not bitter enough to our palate, and we distill superfluous poison to put into it, or conjure up hideous things to frighten ourselves at, which would never exist if we did not make them." 7/11
"We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first" 8/11
Probably also worth including this superb article by @NickCohen4 - theguardian.com/commentisfree/… 9/11
This excerpt from Nick's article [hoping my grasp of threads makes this visible]: 10/11
And - given human psychology - this all too likely scenario of backlash politics 11/11
