In Europe, even in the wealthiest countries, average programmer salaries are about 10% higher than the national salary at best. This would mean probably cutting your salary in half, instead of talking about it. It would be interesting to see you face that reality. Words are cheap.
And besides if you think that's an economically feasible zero-sum calculus, I don't even know what to tell you.
But if you really think you earn too much, you can donate 40-50% of your salary and truly transform another person's life or make an astonishing impact in a charity of your choice. I hope you are being coherent with your words and are already doing this.
> I hope you are being coherent with your words and are already doing this.
How do you feel about people who say to protestors, "if you don't like it here, move"?
You're peddling the same logical fallacy that conservative billionaires have convinced the lower-middle class of for a century.
OP proposes a trade: their high salary for a society that prioritizes the wellbeing of everyone over the wellbeing of the luckiest few. In response, you suggest that OP should give away half their salary to another individual, and they've solved their problem.
The fallacy here is that you assume assume OP's goal is to be purely selfless; that is not the case. OP very selfishly wants to live in a healthier, more sustainable society than they currently do. In response, you disingenuously suggest that they take all of the negatives of their the trade with none of the positives.
Hopefully you see why that's not helpful to anyone.
This is very well put, you said it better than I ever have myself.
One thing I'd add is that, even if I were able to give away enough of my income to make a difference in my community, everyone in the community would benefit, but I would be the only one paying for it. I find this intensely unfair and distasteful.
This is similar to how I felt during the height of the bay area mask mandates when most people were masked and one or two families were not. Those folks were reaping all the benefits of widespread vaccinations and masking, yet bearing none of the burden. I despised those people probably more than was healthy.
> even in the wealthiest countries, average programmer salaries are about 10% higher than the national salary at best
I'm not sure 'even' is the right word here. The gap between developer and median salaries goes down the richer the country is. e.g. in many Eastern European countries the average salary for a software developer can be up to 2x or more higher than the national average.
And besides if you think that's an economically feasible zero-sum calculus, I don't even know what to tell you.
But if you really think you earn too much, you can donate 40-50% of your salary and truly transform another person's life or make an astonishing impact in a charity of your choice. I hope you are being coherent with your words and are already doing this.