Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode Wired For Altruism.

About Larissa MacFarquhar's TED Talk

Larissa MacFarquhar writes about extreme altruists, people who make great sacrifices to help others. She says most of us aren't prepared or willing to do that — which is why we don't give more.

About Larissa MacFarquhar

Larissa MacFarquhar is a staff writer at The New Yorker — where she has profiled subjects ranging from Noam Chomsky to Barack Obama to Quentin Tarantino. In her book Strangers Drowning, Larissa writes about the lives of extreme altruists and why their actions may make the rest of us feel uneasy.

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