I fully endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism. I strongly believe there are many experiences that are better than nothing. Negative utilitarianism implies that the painless elimination of all experiences forever would be as good as utopian lives for all beings forever. So negative utilitarianism makes no sense to me.
As I said in my comment above, I am very uncertain about whether soil nematodes, mites, and springtails have positive or negative. However, I would not see the absence of suicide among these animals as compelling evidence that they have positive lives. I estimated 6.37 % of humans have negative lives, but only 0.00946 % commited suicide in 2021, 0.149 % (= 9.46*10^-5/​0.0637) as many as those I estimate to have negative lives.
I would get more counterintuitive conclusions if I assumed soil nematodes, mites, and springtails have positive lives (although this is not a reason for me to assume their lives are negative). Generally improving human lives, and the conditions of farmed animals would then harm soil animals much more than it benefits humans and farmed animals.
@Marcus Abramovitch 🔸, I am tagging you because I forgot to reply to the last paragraph of your comment. I do not think it makes senses to remind myself and others to help animals by doing something that I believe actually harms animals. However, I still eat fully plant-based because I think the benefits from increased donations are greater than the harm caused to animals due to less agricultural-land-years.
I fully endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism. I strongly believe there are many experiences that are better than nothing. Negative utilitarianism implies that the painless elimination of all experiences forever would be as good as utopian lives for all beings forever. So negative utilitarianism makes no sense to me.
As I said in my comment above, I am very uncertain about whether soil nematodes, mites, and springtails have positive or negative. However, I would not see the absence of suicide among these animals as compelling evidence that they have positive lives. I estimated 6.37 % of humans have negative lives, but only 0.00946 % commited suicide in 2021, 0.149 % (= 9.46*10^-5/​0.0637) as many as those I estimate to have negative lives.
I would get more counterintuitive conclusions if I assumed soil nematodes, mites, and springtails have positive lives (although this is not a reason for me to assume their lives are negative). Generally improving human lives, and the conditions of farmed animals would then harm soil animals much more than it benefits humans and farmed animals.
@Marcus Abramovitch 🔸, I am tagging you because I forgot to reply to the last paragraph of your comment. I do not think it makes senses to remind myself and others to help animals by doing something that I believe actually harms animals. However, I still eat fully plant-based because I think the benefits from increased donations are greater than the harm caused to animals due to less agricultural-land-years.