Surely the net value of having the option depends on the magnitude of the chance that I will, given the option, choose suicide in situations where the expected value of my remaining span of life is positive? For example, if I have the option of suicide that has only a one-in-a-billion chance every minute of being triggered in such a situation (due to transient depression or accidentally pressing the wrong button or whatever), that will kill me on average in two thousand years. Is that better or worse than my odds of falling into an AIMS scenario?
That aside... I think AIMS scenarios are a distraction here. It is certainly true that the longer I live, the more suffering I will experience (including, but not limited to, a vanishingly small chance of extended periods of suffering, as you say). What I conclude from that has a lot to do with my relative valuations of suffering and nonexistence.
To put this a different way: what is the value of an additional observer-moment given an N% chance that it will involve suffering? I would certainly agree that the value increases as N decreases, all else being equal, but I think N has to get awfully large before that value even approximates zero, let alone goes negative (which presumably it would have to before death is the more valuable option).
Surely the net value of having the option depends on the magnitude of the chance that I will, given the option, choose suicide in situations where the expected value of my remaining span of life is positive?
Well -- here's the thing. These sorts of scenarios are relatively easy to safeguard against. For example (addressing the 'wrong button' but also the transient emotional state): require the suicide mechanism to take two thousand years to implement from initiation to irreversibility. Another example -- tailored the other way -- since we're already ta...
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Sounds like sour grapes. I'd heard of people holding such sentiments; this is the first time I've actually seen them expressed myself.