But individual acts of sacrifice for the common good are not scalable in the same way, due to our inherent aversion to loss.
Usually large scale acts of sacrifice are the result of worse alternative consequences, like imprisonment or penalties for cheating on taxes.
I submit that this is a convenient excuse. You have to be the change you want to see in the world. It is easy to say "yeah, I'm making things worse, but its ok because so is everyone else", and thus nothing changes.
More of an observation that people will tend toward their local maximum utility even while global utility is compromised. Sometimes you might discover a way to increase both, but for most ongoing concerns the way to balance the two is via laws and regulation.
I know that my individual contribution to capitalism by working for a major corporation is a drop in the bucket, and simply refusing to work for a corporation has no real impact on poverty worldwide. But I could definitely put more energy into radical action than I do right now.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/14/63-million-am...
I'd say that "exposed to potentially unsafe water more than once during the past decade" is pretty far from "20% of Americans don't have clean tap water". If anything, I'd rather say it's impressive that 80% of Americans haven't been exposed to potentially unsafe water more than once in a decade!
It's not, but unless you are working on something that is directly impoverishing someone to this point, then the economic or social system that allows people to go hungry and without basics is more to blame than your particular role.
People don't go hungry anymore due to lack of societal resources. It's due to either a lack of sufficient collective concern, or even a belief that it is largely acceptable that this occurs.
That the effect of your inequality inducing job is hunger for someone can only be countered with policy and incentives that work at societal, not with individual choices to disengage from jobs that optimize productivity.
It's similar to the fallacy of asking Warren Buffet to cut an additional check to the IRS vs raising tax rates, or the fallacy of thinking that an individual's choice not to eat meat has any meaningful effect on climate change.
> I don't want to just donate to charities, I want to end systemic problems that lead to charities needing to exist in the first place.
This is actually a great way to think about it, and if you have the personal means to pursue the systemic issues without having to worry about your own survival, then go for it. But know that this will almost certainly involve spurring on the collective human will to act towards that goal, not inventing a technology as an individual that will fix the problem.