The available worlds looked pretty grim. They had little to offer him because he had little to offer them. He had been extremely chastened to realize that although he originally came from a world which had cars and computers and ballet and Armagnac, he didn’t, by himself, know how any of it worked. He couldn’t do it. Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it.

-Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Arthur Dent realizes that he, as an individual, is pretty useless for improving a society, but he can make a damn fine sammie.