You could (in principle) verify that the average animal life was Mestroyer::worse than nonexistence by spying on the operation of the brain of every animal on Earth, and seeing how much each was put into and kept in states that caused them to try to get out of those states, also weighted according to how high a priority getting out of those states gets, how often the things that they tried to prevent from happening to themselves happened anyway, weighted according to how hard they tried, or would try, if there was any course of action available to them to avoid them, how much time they spent thinking about their damaged bodies, how much they are changed by signals indicating damage coming from their bodies, and how intense those signals are compared to the minimum intensity that triggers the mind to try to avoid the stimulus.
Multiply each of those amounts by a weighting constant I am not exactly sure of (what units would I use?), add them together, and subtract the whole thing from the amount each is put into and kept in states that cause them to try to stay in those states, or where not being in those states causes them to try and get into those states, weighted according to how hard they try, how much the things they tried hard to make happen to themselves happened, and how much things they did not plan to have happen to themselves, but would have if they understood how they could get them, weighted by how much they would sacrifice to get those things, how much they were changed by signals that had the effect of making them seek the stimulus more, weighted by how intense those signals are compared to the minimum intensity that triggers the mind to seek the stimulus.
The second part should also be multiplied by some weighting constants (I bet they are roughly the same as the amount that the average human cares about these things happening to human minds, that's the best I can tie them down). Then divide by the number of minds you summed up stuff from. That number will be negative iff I'm right.
The second part is much simpler. I am correct about that iff there are at least 10^11 minds capable of all of those things, with a negative average of the per-individual quantity I described on Earth (ignoring quantum mechanics).
Upvoted because of the frank and detailed reduction of pleasure, pain, and preferences in general.
Assume for the time being that it will forever remain beyond the scope of science to change Human Nature. AGI is also impossible, as is Nanotech, BioImmortality, and those things.
Douglas Adams mice finished their human experiment, giving to you, personally, the job of redesigning earth, and specially human society, according to your wildest utopian dreams, but you can't change the unchangeables above.
You can play with architecture, engineering, gender ratio, clothing, money, science grants, governments, feeding rituals, family constitution, the constitution itself, education, etc... Just don't forget if you slide something too far away from what our evolved brains were designed to accept, things may slide back, or instability and catastrophe may ensue.
Finally, if you are not the kind of utilitarian that assigns exactly the same amount of importance to your desires, and to that of others, I want you to create this Utopia for yourself, and your values, not everyone.
The point of this exercise is: The vast majority of folk not related to this community that I know, when asked about an ideal world, will not change human nature, or animal suffering, or things like that, they'll think about changing whatever the newspaper editors have been writing about last few weeks. I am wondering if there is symmetry here, and folks from this community here do not spend that much time thinking about those kinds of change which don't rely on transformative technologies. It is just an intuition pump, a gedankenexperiment if you will. Force your brain to face this counterfactual reality, and make the best world you can given those constraints. Maybe, if sufficiently many post here, the results might clarify something about CEV, or the sociology of LessWrongers...