I'm surprised you ignore all those so easily.
Voluntary fire brigades, et al:
My bad on the miscommunication, I was talking about "throughout history": As a result what I meant was: I can't think of any [morally exceptional people] which [past their own lifetimes] continue to improve our current day-to-day lives.
You are correct though that morally exceptional people do have a (slight) positive impact to my day-to-day. I just haven't seen a case where their contributions transcended time. Similar to the contributions of say: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Bell, person who first repeatedly sparked fire, etc.
The contributions of religious figures transcend time. But you could argue either way about their contributions being beneficial to our day-to-day. Again it would be debatable if it was in the best interest of these religious figures to spread their personal ideology. Either of these debates would be inherently biased towards your take on religion.
The open source industry is far from unbridled altruism.
It's entirely rational to join a VFD out of self interest.
Not at all! You get the knowledge that the men and women standing beside you at an emergency will be there when it's your house/barn/grain silo that goes up.
[0] Funny thing about the morally exceptional: I can't think of any which continue to improve our current day-to-day lives.
[1] Improvement is subjective. But objectively (compared to centuries past), our housing situation has gotten better (more roofs, less exposure to the cold/heat), the average human doesn't worry about getting sick from bad water or getting bitten by a snake while in their bed, the average human dies less to disease and overall dies at a later age, and the average human is able to spend more time on hobbies rather than necessities.