The power of individuals with the right idea to change the world (often running circles around the 'powerful') is the foundation of the technology behind most people's jobs here. How do some people can work in the IT industry and promulgate the parent's fatalistic outlook? Internet Explorer would be the dominant browser, Windows the only operating system, and we'd be discussing it in an MSN forum.

If people believed in this outlook, there was would be no democracy, human rights, and rule of law (in countries around the world), everything would be corrupt and would be the same everywhere, women and minorities would have made no progress, etc. To say it has no effect and nobody cares is edgy and cool these days, but obviously wrong. If your predecessors believed that, I can't imagine how our lives would be now.

The fact is that individuals and groups of individuals, if they act, can and do change the world - and change their communities. Ask any leader; the problem is not lack of power but lack of action. Corruption will fall or not based on you, personally, on what you do. Look at what prior generations did for us; what are you doing for the people who follow us?