Whether people have empathy for animals varies a lot. I know at least one prominent Less Wronger who when discussing vegetarianism said recently that his utility function doesn't have a term for non-human animals suffering. Moreover, history is clear that many humans don't even have more much empathy for much beyond their own tribal group, and even when they have a theory of mind good enough to deceive and fight them, they still might not care.
If the beings who make the simulation are much smarter than we are, then I see no reason why they wouldn't take our suffering about as seriously as many humans take the suffering of animals for medical research, or even more blunt, how some humans take hunting or dog-baiting or cockfighting, or a hundred other activities that cause pain and suffering to with animals for their sheer amusement.
(Incidentally, I'm curious, do you think this universe looks to you like one which has creators who care for their creations?)
Sometimes humans have empathy towards suffering things, sometimes they don't. I guess you could say this is a capacity to not have empathy or a capacity to have empathy and our difference about human empathy is a cup half-full or half-empty thing. Of course, as a predictor of how aliens would treat us, the fact that humans aren't consistently empathetic would be a prediction that aliens might not treat us well. I don't expect aliens to treat us well, whereas I expect our simulators would. Perhaps I am giving the simulators too much credit, intelligence-wis...
My father, who is home recovering from surgery, emailed the following web page to me and a few other members of my family, and expressed interest in reading interesting responses.
Any thoughts?