Interesting, now I know that type of argument has a name. I think many rationalizations are a veneer for laziness. Taking the stance that doing something is useless means you don't have to feel guilty about not doing it. Likewise, when there's a widespread delusion that simple, ineffective actions make us heroes, people will do those actions and nothing else, because giving themselves a gold star is all they really want. It's important not to confuse spending hours in social media circlejerks with "spreading awareness".