Erudite altruism: It’s something that might, at first, arc an eyebrow or raise a smirk. Selflessness is antithetical to so much that we learn and see, from Darwinism to, say, The Wolf of Wall Street.

“I’m going to start calling it possible, it sounds so much better,” chuckles Lily Cole on her gift economy website and app Impossible.com. In a capitalist culture where cash and consumerism are king, ...