The larger problem is that people close to one - one's partner, parents, close friends - will all find out sooner or later; indeed attempting to hide it is probably even worse as it erodes trust.

Which, IMHO, is pretty damn cool.

it isn't cool if everyone ostracizes you and your life sucks whilst you work to save everyone, and then afterwards you get no acknowledgment; at least not in my book, especially if the problem is so large that the incremental reduction in risk you can achieve is very very small.

But in reality, I think that there are third options, side benefits to being involved in the risk-reduction movement (the other people in the movement are nice and smart, which means that they are great to be friends with, and they influence you positively, it provides personal motivation beyond what you would normally have, and if you are good the incremental reduction in risk you can achieve is large enough that you make a substantial improvement to your own prospects), so actually I think that being a risk-reducer is a personal gain, at least the way the current situation is.

If the situation changed so that it was a heavy personal loss (e.g. you could maximally reduce risk by sacrificing your life or risking a serious probability of that for the cause) then I would want to heavily advocate incentivization in some form; otherwise, a lot of people will drop away from the movement (not necessarily me, though I would have to do some soul-searching).