On the other hand, see http://foundational-research.org/publications/importance-of-wild-animal-suffering/ , which argues that insects have lives with negative value because of suffering. In that case, World 2 is strictly worse than world 1: fewer cows (who do have lives with value) and more insects (whose lives have negative value).
Drethelin and Jiro, I was taking for granted - because it is a common opinion among vegans - that cows lives are morally unworthy, and that if insects lives are like anything at all, they are awful.
The reasoning works in all the four cases. Animal 1 has + life and animal 2 + life and they are anti correlated in nature, both are negative and anti-correlated, or when the signals are different 1 is + 2 is - and they are positively correlated.
EDIT: After discussing this here I had a long discussion over email about this with two EA's, and decided to put fort...
I think it's past time for another Stupid Questions thread, so here we go.
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Please respect people trying to fix any ignorance they might have, rather than mocking that ignorance.