Generally, the highest impact of any individual is mostly minior (of course the collective actions matter, but you are mostly bound to be a tiny gear in massive cultural processes that are nearly out of our control). To increase impact, you need to increase ~net worth. The most effective way of doing that is to ascend existing hierarchies even though that is massively biased by nepotism, looks and imperfect evaluation abilities; but, hey, that's the best we can get out of a system of distributed responsibilities and provided that all alternatives seem to diverge into authoritarianism. It is excessively rare to find alternative ways of having an impact.

If nobody tried, changes would of course occur much less often. So there is that.

I don't believe this. I think humans are capable of rapid change if appealed to their emotions in a powerful way. I think kids are the key to this and I am willing to try it. Imagine if 1000 people wrote urgent messages that actually reached these people who have significant control over how things are produced - that has to make some impact!

Just be prepared to fail. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying it is futile.