A commonplace book: an old-fashioned literary diary for recording interesting items from reading you've done. I use mine to record snippets from reading, conversation and life in general. (The early 2003 entries are from a period some years ago -- before the blog age -- when I tried an online commonplace book as a straight web page.)
Popular delusions occur when appealing but baseless stories spread contagiously from one person to another. Some ideas are more virulent than others: people have been found to react most enthusiastically to narratives of fear.
Edward Chancellor, "Waiting to Deflate" New York Review (August 19, 2021)
