Giving Compass' Take:

 • In this podcast, writer Larissa MacFarquhar discusses her experiences interviewing "extreme altruists" — people who go above and beyond for good causes.

• Much of this conversation involves digging into the psychology of giving: Are there usually alternative motives behind good deeds? What does this say about the field of philanthropy?

• Here's more about understanding the Effective Altruism movement.

As a writer of profiles, Larissa MacFarquhar is granted the privilege of listening to, learning from, and sharing the stories of extraordinary thinkers like Derik Parfit, Noam Chomsky, Hilary Mantel, and Paul Krugman. And she’s often drawn to write about the individual thinking behind extreme altruism, dementia care, and whether to stay in a small town. Motivating her is a desire to place readers inside someone’s head: to see what they see and to think how they think.

In their dialogue, Larissa and Tyler discuss the thinking and thinkers behind her profiles, essays, and books, including notions of moral luck, exit vs voice, the prose of Kenneth Tynan, why altruistic heroes are mainly found in genre fiction, why she avoids describing physical appearances in her writing, the circumstances that push humans to live more extraordinary lives, what today has in common with the 1890s, and more.

Listen to the full interview with Larissa MacFarquhar on what makes extreme altruists tick by Mercatus Center at medium.com.