I knew this canned rebuttal was coming and almost addressed it in my previous comment.

I've not found this to be true at all, for a variety of reasons. One of my moral principles that extreme wealth accumulation by any individual is ultimately harmful to society, even for those who start with altruistic values. Money is power, and power corrupts.

Also, the further from my immediate circle I focus my impact on, the less certainty I have that my impact is achieving what I want it to. I've worked on global projects, and looking back at them those are the projects I'm least certain moved the needle in the direction I wanted them to. Not because they didn't achieve their goals, but because I'm not sure the goals at the outset actually had the long term impact I wanted them to. In fact, it's often due to precisely what we're talking about in this thread: sometimes new things come along and change everything.

The butterfly effect is just as real with altruism as it is with anything else.