[lotsofpulp]

One can define effort in that way, and arrive at the conclusion you did, but it is not what cognitive dissonance is typically used to mean.

But that definition of effort as it relates to the ability to “survive” does not seem useful to me. It takes a lot of effort to manually dig a ditch compared to using an excavator, but you would not pay the person that shows up with a shovel more than the person that shows up with an excavator.

Edit: this is not intended to say your friend does not deserve a better pay to quality of life (QoL) ratio. However, the fact that you have a comparably favorable pay to QoL and they have an undesirable pay to QoL ratio means society does not want more people to be selling that labor, but rather more people to be selling your labor.

[photon12]

I used to dig ditches in places where excavators couldn't go for a living, and I'm familiar with the contract rate differences for that type of labor and equipment.

My point is that the disparity is such a chasm that my brain can't reconcile it. We aren't talking about ditch digging, we are talking about serving food to the people of Seattle. All the software engineers in Seattle, in my experience, love to frequent dining establishments. Their quality of life is dependent on the labor of people serving them. There's no way I can accept the disparity as "just the way it is." My gut can't take it.

[theonlybutlet]

Not really in response to your comment, but there is an assumption from those commenting on your post. In that the labour market is a perfect market. When in truth it is far from it. There's systemic issues such as imperfect information, misallocated risk (they don't know what the market rate is for their work/they're too scared to look for another job) , and friction such as monopoly, oligopoly and legislation. And then after all to consider labour isnt your typical resource, people do not simply disapear when they become obsolete, they need to eat.

[lotsofpulp]

Seattle real estate is some of the most desirable in the world. It very well could be that owning (and renting) land there could be so expensive, that food service workers having a higher pay to QoL ratio means eating out is “unaffordable” for most people in the Seattle area (under current quantities of housing).

I put “unaffordable” in quotes because eating out is easily replaced by eating at home, or eating frozen dinners, etc, so restaurants do not have the pricing power they might need to allow the food service workers to have decent pay to QoL ratio in a place like Seattle.

[uoaei]

I think you are missing the point.

The other commenter is not confused about why things are the way they are. They understand these things already, obviously they think about it a lot. You explain it, they agree that things are that way due to the reasons you describe, but that does not explain why the disparity ought to exist.

[lotsofpulp]

Sorry, my original intent was to inform that they were not experiencing cognitive dissonance, as typically defined.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

[FollowingTheDao]

This is what a profit driven society does. I am not condemning it, but that is just the reality.

If you had to pay more at their restaurant then your quality of life (profit) will go down.

I am glad you are still human and your gut cannot take it. Maybe look at using some of your savings to help the chef start a coop restaurant?

[SoftTalker]

So give the guy some money?

[Firmwarrior]

I guess the answer is to pay $150 for a medium-quality meal for one, that way we don't have to build any more high rise apartments