Wired For Altruism

TED Radio Hour

NPR

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.4 • 21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2019

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

(Original broadcast date: May 26, 2017). Helping others feels good, but why do some go farther than others? This hour, TED speakers explore ideas about altruism — what motivates us to be altruistic, what limits us and do we ever go too far. TED speakers include psychologist Abigail Marsh, clinical psychologist Cheryl Steed, philosopher Peter Singer, and writer Larissa MacFarquhar.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Guy here.
0:01.1	So there are people in the world
0:02.7	who have donated their kidneys to people they've never met.
0:06.8	There are people who give away more than half their income
0:09.4	to charity.
0:10.6	And people who will stop what they're doing
0:13.0	and devote all their attention to a stranger in distress.
0:17.2	They're called extreme altruists.
0:19.3	And psychologists have found that their brains
0:22.4	are actually different than the rest of ours.
0:25.0	So what makes someone altruistic?
0:27.4	And do you have to be an extreme altruist to do good things?
0:31.5	That's what we're exploring on this episode
0:33.4	of the Ted Radio Hour, Wired for Altruism,
0:36.2	which originally broadcast in May of 2017.
0:41.6	This is the Ted Radio Hour.
0:47.6	Each week, groundbreaking Ted Talks.
0:49.7	Ted Talks.
0:50.7	Ted.
0:51.4	Ted, technology.
0:52.4	Entertainment, design.
0:53.7	Design.
	...

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