Podcasts about strangers drowning

"Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help"

What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In her book Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas. In this provocative conversation writer Samanth Subramanian along with Larissa contemplates what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to?  What exactly do we value most as human beings, and why? This conversation was originally streamed as part of the The Bangalore Life Science Cluster and NCBS Archives' Public Lecture series and has been adapted to this podcast.

This episode is about Wolf's “Moral Saints,” Peter Singer's “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” and Larissa Macfarquhar's Strangers Drowning.  Susan Wolf thinks that devoting your life to helping others would be a real drag. It'd interfere with playing tennis and reading Tolstoy. True enough but some people might have philosophical and personal reasons to do it anyway. For example, Peter Singer argues that, if you think a child's life is worth more than your shoes, then you're morally obliged to give away all your money to charity.  Larissa Macfarquhar helps out with the personal reasons. She's written a book that profiles a whole bunch of real-life do-gooders. And it turns out that even though the saintly life is tough, the saints are getting something out of it.  And from their perspective, a life of Tolstoy and tennis might not be a great as Wolf makes it out to be. References Macfarquhar, Strangers DrowningSinger, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”Wolf, “Moral Saints”  Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=35146517&fan_landing=true)

In the depths of a brutal famine in Sudan in 1993, Kevin Carter took a photo of a starving child and a perched vulture which appeared on the front page of newspapers all over the world. Readers bombarded the editors with the question "What happened to the child?" Co-Hosts Jay Shapiro and Coleman Hughes discuss this difficult ethical case with Larissa MacFarquar, best selling author of Strangers Drowning

“New Yorker” writer Larissa MacFarquhar's book “Strangers Drowning” examines the psychological roots and existential dilemmas motivating those rare individuals who are practicing lives of extreme ethical commitment. In this conversation with NYPL’s Jessica Strand, MacFarquhar tells the stories of people who devote themselves fully to bettering the lives of strangers—even when it comes at great personal cost.

Kayla, Ruairí, and Lucas discuss the presidential election and campus news, and the Center for Ethics in Society presents an interview (seek to 14:24) of Larissa MacFarquhar, staff writer for The New Yorker. The Axe and Politics podcast is still a work in progress. Thanks for joining us, and please consider supporting more of The Stanford Political Journal's work at stanfordpolitics.com.

Host Dr. Richard Louis Miller​ interviews renowned New Yorker journalist Larissa MacFarquhar, whose new book, *Strangers Drowning* reveals the individuals who devote themselves fully to bettering the lives of strangers, even when it comes at great personal cost. Larissa MacFarquhar has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998. Her profile subjects have included John Ashbery, Barack Obama, Noam Chomsky, Hilary Mantel, Derek Parfit, David Chang, and Aaron Swartz, among many others. There are those of us who help and those who live to help. In *Strangers Drownin,g, Larissa MacFarquhar digs deep into the psychological roots and existential dilemmas motivating those rare individuals practicing lives of extreme ethical commitment.

Larissa MacFarquhar writes about do-gooders who practice effective altruism. They don't care what others think of their extreme choices. They care about being effective.

This week, Kate Clifford Larson discusses the life of Rosemary Kennedy; Alexandra Alter has news from the literary world; Larissa MacFarquhar talks about “Strangers Drowning”; feedback from readers; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Pamela Paul is the host.

 What does it mean to devote yourself to helping others? Larissa MacFarquhar, a staff writer for The New Yorker, follows the joys and defeats of people living lives of extreme ethical commitment in her new book, Strangers Drowning. Jessica Jackley, co-founder of the revolutionary micro-lending site Kiva, in her book, Clay Water Brick, explores the triumphs and difficulties of using entrepreneurship to change the world. Sharing inspiring—and sometimes unsettling—stories of do-gooders from around the world, MacFarquhar and Jackley will challenge us to think about what we value most, and why.**Click here for photos from the event.