Contrary to the author's quip about incentive systems, I wish I'd learned earlier that it's a fool's errand to care about things that have no positive feedback loop, no relevancy in my life, that I have no actual influence over, or that are otherwise beyond my purview. To 21 year old me, and probably many others, it would seem heartless or self-serving, but by doing so I get to focus on the few things I can
authentically care about without worrying about how much they're reciprocated, and I don't need to passive aggressively try to influence broader behavior indirectly. If a neighbor or random stranger needs a hand, I give it to them and don't ask for anything in return. Likewise if someone wants to strike up a convo. I give people my time and energy if I can afford to and want to. I try to make that possible more often than not, and it leaves me with a very healthy social life, along with a non-burnout inducing work life. Beyond that, it'd be self-destructive and non-economical.
I realized years ago that in retrospect it was stupid to care beyond what I was rewarded for caring about or that my success was measured by, which was time, not quality, or accessibility, or usability, or anything else, and that's usually the case. If you have 2 weeks to get something completed, and it's not in the definition of completed to make sure screen readers can parse the website or whatever, then it's not your job to do that unless you'd be there anyway and get the rest of the stuff done with time to spare.
If you work at the DMV, you're sure as hell not wise to try and fight for different higher level decisions, it's not worth losing it for, and you're not measured by how happy of a place it is. Sure, engage in your interactions with people with respect, but don't take on responsibilities you're not paid for.
That said, if you could otherwise afford to spend a bit more time or effort outside work on things that aren't entirely self-serving, after you've done things that do bring you only personal value, but deliberately choose not to all the time, then ya that's just lame af.
Lastly, I do ultimately agree that some people are just absolute careless assholes on an individual level or deeply antisocial unfortunately, and we shouldn't be cultivating that in our cities, but that's a different convo. The worst I tend to see on a daily basis is cigarettes being tossed on the sidewalk and dogshit left by owners who I'd prefer didn't have them.