The place the analogy really seems to fail to me is that it presumes there is this single tiny thing that matters (which is quite complimentary and thus a nice PR angle), when really there are probably thousands of things that will retrospectively be seen to have mattered and the english speaking singularitarian political movement is just one of them.

Well there may be some cases where a little effort can make a big difference - and it may pay for individuals to seek them out. However, there's obviously a big influence from technological determinism - which would tend to damp out small fluctuations due to the efforts of individuals.