The "NPC" frame is fundamentally toxic.

It allows you to think of other people as means, not ends.

All people are ends in and of themselves.

It's dizzying and overwhelming to contemplate that.

But it's also beautiful and inspiring.

Even if people aren't as active as you'd like them to be, and are just going with what the system around them constrains them to, it's still not OK to ignore them as ends.