The Underrated Factor That Induces People to Stay Instead of Leave

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David Frost, Jr. lived his whole life in Ufala, Alabama; all of his siblings left the town because there was greater opportunity elsewhere. He heard that Judge Wallace wanted him never to come back to Ufala because he was a troublemaker,. His brothers in Cincinnati were saying, come join us, we can get you a job tomorrow. Just come join us and have a better life. And it was just sheer orneryness. I'm going to stay here. This is my home.

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.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded December 17th, 2018 Other ways to connect

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