Could veganism increase wild animal suffering?

[aroneous]

Like most of us, I became vegan because I thought doing so would reduce the animal suffering I was responsible for. I still believe that to be true, but over time, I have come to understand things from a more complex perspective, to be specific: I don't think veganism necessarily reduces net animal suffering in the short term, when we factor in the suffering we are not responsible for, i.e. wild animal suffering.

The argument here is simply that in the process of clearing land for livestock use, we replace and redirect the plant biomass that would have likely sustained several small wild animals to a smaller number of larger farmed animals. And I believe it to be the case that wild animals typically suffer worse deaths than farmed ones. Of course, one thing to consider here is that we specifically plant food crops in place of natural flora which may have a much smaller portion of edible matter available, but I think it's still quite possible that the balance tips in favor of animal agriculture.

Of course, if we were to seriously consider this issue, it's clear that replacing natural areas with concrete would be the preferable solution. But this can't be taken to its logical conclusion -- if we were to do this on a global scale, humans would no longer be able to live on this planet, and once we die off, wild animal suffering would surely emerge again. I think that gets at an argument you could make against this sort of reasoning: if you had infinite money, would you really feel justified in endlessly buying (and throwing away) animal products with the goal of reducing net suffering? This would probably force some acknowledgement of the more complex human factors at play here, and the longer-term consequences of our actions.

I think the only thing we can surely claim is that veganism reduces human-caused animal suffering. But I'm certain that being vegan is better for humans themselves, in that a society without animal agriculture would be a healthier and more productive one. And since humans are the only species on the planet capable of some day potentially addressing animal suffering, I do believe that (from a negative utilitarian perspective, at least) the long-term utilitarian benefits of veganism outweigh any short-term increase in net animal suffering we choose not to prevent (though we are not responsible for it). We're faced with a kind of trolley problem where by being vegan we choose not to pull the lever, so from our narrow perspective more individuals are killed, though the implications of our decision further down the line are less clear.

Have you ever heard an argument against veganism along these lines? I guess an unfortunate aspect of my understanding of the utilitarian aspects of veganism in this way is that I can no longer really make the typical arguments in favor of veganism with the same kind of conviction I once had, and saying "you should go vegan because it's better for humans who have the ability to reduce suffering in the long-term" is not at all convincing for the average person (I don't think many people are really thinking in utilitarian terms to begin with).

[Red]

The argument here is simply that in the process of clearing land for livestock use, we replace and redirect the plant biomass that would have likely sustained several small wild animals to a smaller number of larger farmed animals. And I believe it to be the case that wild animals typically suffer worse deaths than farmed ones.

Why do you believe this?

I've seen that argument go that, while animals in the wild on average don't have it anywhere near as bad, the fact that there are so many more wild animals than animals on factory farms results in more overall suffering, often due to predators. But there are a few issues with this line of reasoning.

Ecosystems need there to be significantly fewer predators than prey, due to thermodynamics and such. Not to mention, very few predators have hunting success rates over 10% (average is closer to about 5%).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_s ... in_animals

This alone tells me that not only are attacks on prey not particularly common, even when it does happen, animals are very good at escaping with their lives intact (and often unharmed). Prey animals are neither stupid nor weak; They've evolved defense mechanisms against predators, or incredibly high speeds and awareness.

Even if we are to grant that most animals in the wild die terrible deaths (which, again, is a claim that needs to be substantiated), you need to make a pretty strong case that the entirety of a wild animal's life is about as bad, if not worse than all the suffering felt by cows, chickens, pigs, etc., especially in recent years with the horrendous practice of ventilation shutdown being used more frequently in light of the recent pandemic. This might just be my incredulity, but to me, it's dubious to argue that hundreds of billions animals that are free to roam, choose whom they mate with, where to call home, and may or may not experience some horrible death, totals to more suffering than the tens of billions of animals that are forcibly cramped into cages, have to eat from a very select group of foods, are forcibly impregnated, and almost certainly face a horrible death (being hung upside down and having their throats slit, thrown into a grinder shortly after being born, whathaveyou).

I know negative Utilitarians place more value on suffering than pleasure, but do you discount the entire possibility that wild animals ever experience happiness, which offsets some of the suffering? Animals love to eat food, have sex, play with their children, and so on, just like us humans. I'm not saying it's all sunshine and roses for animals, I do not for a second that there are thousands suffering right now, but this has to be weighed against the positives.

One of the reasons why I don't like focusing too much attention on this issue is because there are a lot of unknowns. You could make the case that the suffering felt by wild animals overall is worse than the suffering felt by those in factory farms (that is, if we're looking at this strictly through a Utilitarian lens), but it's not really something we know at the moment and it isn't clear that investigating this would lead to much, let alone be feasible to do anything about at this point in time.

There are of course ways that animals do suffer that we can do something about, namely eradicating parasites (including mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, and intestinal worms) which AFAIK for the most fill few important ecological niches, and significantly reducing our impact on the climate, which will harm animal populations (though it likely won't hurt animals as much as it will hurt humans).

Of course, if we were to seriously consider this issue, it's clear that replacing natural areas with concrete would be the preferable solution.

Concrete is incredibly important for infrastructure, but it's one of the highest emitting materials around, and as of right now there aren't really any viable alternatives to that that are widely implemented. If you want, you can just cut down forests and scorch the land.

I'm also not sure what you mean by this though; Will it just be concrete layed over forests and such, or will it be used for infrastructure? I'm not sure if people are keen on living on a giant grey ball.

I think the only thing we can surely claim is that veganism reduces human-caused animal suffering. But I'm certain that being vegan is better for humans themselves, in that a society without animal agriculture would be a healthier and more productive one. And since humans are the only species on the planet capable of some day potentially addressing animal suffering, I do believe that (from a negative utilitarian perspective, at least) the long-term utilitarian benefits of veganism outweigh any short-term increase in net animal suffering we choose not to prevent (though we are not responsible for it). We're faced with a kind of trolley problem where by being vegan we choose not to pull the lever, so from our narrow perspective more individuals are killed, though the implications of our decision further down the line are less clear.

In a few decades when most of the world is Vegan (because we'll be forced to be, due to the unsustainability of animal agriculture), we can address any and all wild animal suffering. Veganism is certainly optimal for humanity, especially as the population grows and we use more space for housing and infrastructure. The UN estimates the human population won't pass twelve billion, but even if we had twenty billion, we wouldn't be using that much land and resources comparatively.

Have you ever heard an argument against veganism along these lines? I guess an unfortunate aspect of my understanding of the utilitarian aspects of veganism in this way is that I can no longer really make the typical arguments in favor of veganism with the same kind of conviction I once had, and saying "you should go vegan because it's better for humans who have the ability to reduce suffering in the long-term" is not at all convincing for the average person (I don't think many people are really thinking in utilitarian terms to begin with).

I think even viewing at this from a negative utilitarian lens, it isn't necessarily useful nor a proper conclusion. The total amount of suffering felt by wild animals is a massive unknown, with few real options on the table, while the total suffering felt by farmed animals is certain and absolute, and has very easy ways of addressing for the vast majority of people.

But your last remark does touch on a problem with trying to address wild animal suffering as of right now: It risks making Vegans look rather... strange and pedantic. Most people like nature and wild animals (as do I), so the idea of intentionally engaging in some sort of mass extermination by paving over everything with concrete is unconscionable to them, and will turn people off of Veganism.

Even though the ethical argument is the strongest argument to make in favor of veganism, there is no shortage of other arguments you can make to convince someone if you're unsure of the ethical ones (environment, health, sustainability, economics, antibiotic resistance, pathogens, etc).

PS I hope my response doesn't come across as arrogant or dismissive, this is an important discussion to have here since it's brought up often in Vegan debate circles.

[aroneous]

I've seen that argument go that, while animals in the wild on average don't have it anywhere near as bad, the fact that there are so many more wild animals than animals on factory farms results in more overall suffering, often due to predators. But there are a few issues with this line of reasoning.

I think it's more about it being worse near the beginning and end of their lives. A large portion of wild animals are r-selected, meaning they have a lot of offspring and very few make it past infancy (think rodents, sea turtles) and typically when animals reach the end of their lives, they don't die quickly and painlessly, but rather their bodies will slowly degrade and make them easy targets for predators and scavengers, unless they can find a secure and isolated place to hide themselves. And even then death by dehydration/starvation is inevitable.

Even if we are to grant that most animals in the wild die terrible deaths (which, again, is a claim that needs to be substantiated), you need to make a pretty strong case that the entirety of a wild animal's life is about as bad, if not worse than all the suffering felt by cows, chickens, pigs, etc., especially in recent years with the horrendous practice of ventilation shutdown being used more frequently in light of the recent pandemic. This might just be my incredulity, but to me, it's dubious to argue that hundreds of billions animals that are free to roam, choose whom they mate with, where to call home, and may or may not experience some horrible death, totals to more suffering than the tens of billions of animals that are forcibly cramped into cages, have to eat from a very select group of foods, are forcibly impregnated, and almost certainly face a horrible death (being hung upside down and having their throats slit, thrown into a grinder shortly after being born, whathaveyou).

I think you're right that the life of a wild animal could involve less suffering than that of a farmed animal, if we're comparing individuals. But I don't know how useful it is to compare degrees of suffering when the suffering is already likely to be extreme in both cases. I think we can't exactly ignore the numbers involved, when we consider that there are already several orders of magnitude more wild vertebrates in existence than farmed ones.

I know negative Utilitarians place more value on suffering than pleasure, but do you discount the entire possibility that wild animals ever experience happiness, which offsets some of the suffering? Animals love to eat food, have sex, play with their children, and so on, just like us humans. I'm not saying it's all sunshine and roses for animals, I do not for a second that there are thousands suffering right now, but this has to be weighed against the positives.

On a personal level, I can't even say for myself that any amount of happiness and pleasure I would experience in my life could even slightly make up for an experience of extreme physical suffering followed by death. It's not that I discount the happiness of animals, I just think that the worst kinds of suffering are much worse than the best kinds of happiness they can experience, and that the vast majority of wild animals do experience these levels of suffering at some point in their lives.

I think even viewing at this from a negative utilitarian lens, it isn't necessarily useful nor a proper conclusion. The total amount of suffering felt by wild animals is a massive unknown, with few real options on the table, while the total suffering felt by farmed animals is certain and absolute, and has very easy ways of addressing for the vast majority of people.

Yeah, I highly doubt the utility of addressing this topic in a discussion with a non-vegan, unless they bring it up themselves. But I think it's important for us to know how to respond to it, and we should be willing to at least acknowledge that while veganism surely reduces farmed animal suffering, there are possible externalities involved that may not ostensibly work in our favor, though their exact nature is extremely difficult to estimate at the moment. As you have implied, to be effective advocates we need to focus more on the tangible impacts of our decisions. I don't think it's any more disingenuous to focus on farmed animal suffering over wild animal suffering than it is to focus on the well-being of your family and community over that of strangers, for example.

PS I hope my response doesn't come across as arrogant or dismissive, this is an important discussion to have here since it's brought up often in Vegan debate circles.

No worries! I'm just glad I finally got the chance to discuss this with someone (it's been knocking around in my head for a while).

[brimstoneSalad]

I think it's more about it being worse near the beginning and end of their lives. A large portion of wild animals are r-selected, meaning they have a lot of offspring and very few make it past infancy (think rodents, sea turtles) and typically when animals reach the end of their lives, they don't die quickly and painlessly, but rather their bodies will slowly degrade and make them easy targets for predators and scavengers, unless they can find a secure and isolated place to hide themselves. And even then death by dehydration/starvation is inevitable.

Predators, due to targeting weakness or disability, can function as mercy killers in an ecosystem. Regardless, death by dehydration or starvation is not inevitable even without them. Plenty of ecosystems have a surplus of food, the food just comes in lower qualities which reduces fertility for the less successful foragers.

You seem to view ecology as kind of incompetent, but there are a lot of inputs and variables you're not considering. Most organisms regulate reproductions pretty successfully based on resource availability. Even in humans, when resources fall below a certain amount (with calorie intake) fertility drops drastically.
Sub-optimal nutrition is certainly common, but I don't think starvation is (outside of what are typically human influences resulting in enormous numbers of animals).

It's hard to dispute that death sucks, but that doesn't mean it's bad enough to outweigh the goods in life, even for a wild animal.
The reason it's easy to understand it as outweighing it in a farmed scenario is the shorter life with fewer goods, and generally having more terrible things happen and less of social value in a human ecosystem (children taken, etc.).
This is aside from all of the harm regarding climate change, nutritional diseases in humans, etc.

Regarding r-strategy infant deaths, these animals have very little investment at birth, and are born blind and helpless; there's every reason to believe that means proportionally less sentient. It's sad, but it's not the same level of moral harm found with an animal with a fully functioning mind.
From pinkies to larvae, I think you can broadly discount the moral harm of many of these r-strategy animal deaths pre-adulthood to a small fraction of what you'd account for in other animals' babies.

I think you're right that the life of a wild animal could involve less suffering than that of a farmed animal, if we're comparing individuals. But I don't know how useful it is to compare degrees of suffering when the suffering is already likely to be extreme in both cases. I think we can't exactly ignore the numbers involved, when we consider that there are already several orders of magnitude more wild vertebrates in existence than farmed ones.

It matters because of the relative goods involved (or lack thereof).

On a personal level, I can't even say for myself that any amount of happiness and pleasure I would experience in my life could even slightly make up for an experience of extreme physical suffering followed by death.

Intuitively, you're saying a painful death after a happy life is just as bad as a whole as a painful death after a boring and uneventful unfulfilling life?
I'm not sure how you're doing this accounting.

Isn't there some amount of good you would accept for the pain of, say, a paper cut?
If so, then your accounting is being done inconsistently.
The only question would remain "what's stopping these things from scaling?" which is the principle conceit of utilitarianism-- it's that very idea that we can measure and compare things that you seem to be rejecting.

It's not that I discount the happiness of animals, I just think that the worst kinds of suffering are much worse than the best kinds of happiness they can experience, and that the vast majority of wild animals do experience these levels of suffering at some point in their lives.

But you seem to be suggesting infinitely worse, if it's breaking the math. If it's not infinitely worse, there's a tipping point there. I have to ask why we should assume that tipping point favors the efilist view.

Deaths aside, we must at least assume that for those animals that live with a mix of goods and bads in a natural ecosystem, the goods must outweigh the bads as least slightly in their psychologies to ensure fitness. It's unlikely a mind functions optimally in an unbalanced state of suffering. Farms offer no such assurance, being modern inventions rather than the environments those minds evolved in, and being environments in which a mind is barely useful at all.
So after we determine that goods are accruing on average, the only question is the net harms of death vs. the net goods in life.
It may be a worthwhile question, but I don't think it's one easily answered without data we don't have.

[aroneous]

Predators, due to targeting weakness or disability, can function as mercy killers in an ecosystem. Regardless, death by dehydration or starvation is not inevitable even without them. Plenty of ecosystems have a surplus of food, the food just comes in lower qualities which reduces fertility for the less successful foragers.

You seem to view ecology as kind of incompetent, but there are a lot of inputs and variables you're not considering. Most organisms regulate reproductions pretty successfully based on resource availability. Even in humans, when resources fall below a certain amount (with calorie intake) fertility drops drastically.
Sub-optimal nutrition is certainly common, but I don't think starvation is (outside of what are typically human influences resulting in enormous numbers of animals).

From what I've seen, predation itself isn't always very merciful in that prey animals are not always killed quickly. That's only necessary for smaller/pack predators who can't risk the prey fighting back, but for larger animals where this is less of a danger (e.g. lions) it's in fact to their benefit to eat their prey alive, as any additional time spent killing it increases the risk of their catch being stolen.

I'm not sure about starvation (many animals can go for very long periods without food), but dehydration (in land animals) may be more common than you think. A common effect of aging/disease in animals is the loss of mobility which is very much necessary to be able to access water (though some small animals like mice and lizards could perhaps survive for some time on dew/precipitation, if there is any). Though I think it would be a bit more likely that an animal that can no longer walk/fly/swim would be killed by a predator before it dies of dehydration/starvation.

Regarding r-strategy infant deaths, these animals have very little investment at birth, and are born blind and helpless; there's every reason to believe that means proportionally less sentient. It's sad, but it's not the same level of moral harm found with an animal with a fully functioning mind.
From pinkies to larvae, I think you can broadly discount the moral harm of many of these r-strategy animal deaths pre-adulthood to a small fraction of what you'd account for in other animals' babies.

Perhaps, but I'm not sure how ready I am to just accept that. It's certainly hard to relate to a newborn mouse, but I would like to see some evidence that their experience of suffering is much less on account of being so undeveloped. Sea turtles, on the other hand, seem to be born quite sentient and physically capable, so that doesn't seem to be universally the case.

Intuitively, you're saying a painful death after a happy life is just as bad as a whole as a painful death after a boring and uneventful unfulfilling life?
I'm not sure how you're doing this accounting.

Isn't there some amount of good you would accept for the pain of, say, a paper cut?
If so, then your accounting is being done inconsistently.
The only question would remain "what's stopping these things from scaling?" which is the principle conceit of utilitarianism-- it's that very idea that we can measure and compare things that you seem to be rejecting.

That's an interesting question -- is there some amount of personal good I would accept for a papercut? I think so. And let's say there is some particular "ratio" of good to bad in that scenario. It seems that you're asking me (CMIIW): if we were to scale up both the good and the bad, but maintain that ratio, would there be some "threshold" at which I say that the pain is no longer worth the pleasure, and if there is, could that cutoff point be anything but arbitrary? I think most humans (and animals) will agree that there are certain categories of pain and suffering that are to be "avoided at all costs", and if we know for a fact that an individual is going to experience this kind of suffering, that is justification to preclude their existence. Personally, that's where I (and I think many other NU-leaning people) would draw the line, and I don't find that so arbitrary.

But you seem to be suggesting infinitely worse, if it's breaking the math. If it's not infinitely worse, there's a tipping point there. I have to ask why we should assume that tipping point favors the efilist view.

As I mentioned just above, I do think there is a tipping point, but I should clarify that I'm not an efilist. I think efilism is one actionable interpretation of negative utilitarianism, in particular the one that is easiest for most people to wrap their heads around. I may have aroused your suspicions by suggesting we pave over nature with concrete, but I was actually just trying to highlight how any potential reduction in suffering brought about by animal agriculture is simply an inadvertent side effect that is far from being the best solution we would come up with if we seriously wanted to tackle this issue.

But many tend to equate NU with efilism, and I suppose that indeed one way we could go about ending suffering is to end life on this planet, and perhaps even go so far as to go around exploding stars and planets and accelerating the heat death of the universe. But I don't think that is the only way. I don't think any technology that we could possibly develop to destroy existing life and prevent new life from developing would be much more complex than technology to protect and preserve existing life. I think that if existence is something that humans value, there are ways to achieve negative utilitarian ends that are consistent with that, though they are perhaps a bit difficult for us to imagine at the moment.

[brimstoneSalad]

but for larger animals where this is less of a danger (e.g. lions) it's in fact to their benefit to eat their prey alive, as any additional time spent killing it increases the risk of their catch being stolen.

Being eaten is a pretty quick death for any animal that will bleed out.

Though I think it would be a bit more likely that an animal that can no longer walk/fly/swim would be killed by a predator before it dies of dehydration/starvation.

That was my main point.
But in terms of dehydration, that's not a major risk for herbivores in all but very dry climates or climates with very dry periods, because their food contains large amounts of water. For wild horses for instance (a good metric to look at because they're fairly well studied since they're large and people are concerned about horses) it looks like dehydration is only about 2%.

That said, providing drinking water sources for animals during dry times is probably a very effective form of altruism to reduce wild animals suffering. This is particularly true due to climate change and heat events.

Perhaps, but I'm not sure how ready I am to just accept that. It's certainly hard to relate to a newborn mouse, but I would like to see some evidence that their experience of suffering is much less on account of being so undeveloped.

The extent to which an organism is cognitively there is typically the extent to which it's functional, because it doesn't make evolutionary sense to favor cognition when function is lacking. Studies on human babies (also born helpless but with much larger brains) suggest only moderate sentience until several months. Very little at all at (or before) birth.

Sea turtles, on the other hand, seem to be born quite sentient and physically capable, so that doesn't seem to be universally the case.

I don't think ending animal agriculture will necessarily increase the number of sea turtles being born. I think we have to look at rodents and other land-based macrofauna.

I think most humans (and animals) will agree that there are certain categories of pain and suffering that are to be "avoided at all costs"

Not most humans, only hedonists at best. Most would choose to submit to pain and suffering to protect family, for instance. People can choose to suffer and die for others.
In the moment of suffering, the brain's fight or flight response may kick in and make rational thought and decision making impossible, but that doesn't mean that suffering is infinite (or practically so) just because it breaks the rational mind.
For instance, it's not uncommon for people to report pain so intense they wanted to die, but nonetheless after the fact and in the light of day (being able to reason again) those same people are almost universally very glad that they did not die.

Likewise, rationally I may agree to water boarding for some sum of money that I think to be worth it. During said waterboarding, however, if you asked me if I wanted to continue I would probably be incapable of agreeing to (don't ask me how I know what waterboarding feels like). And every time you stopped half way I'd be mad later (after collecting my wits) and say stop asking me I already told you I wanted to.

You need to reflect on some important existential questions on hedonistic vs. preference systems of value, and how much value the rational mind has over the irrational one. Just because something is intense and seems in the moment it should be avoided at all costs, that doesn't mean that's true.

and if we know for a fact that an individual is going to experience this kind of suffering, that is justification to preclude their existence.

The problem with that is pretty much everybody alive disagrees with that. And while the opinion about some fact of reality like the shape of the Earth may mean nothing, the opinions people have about the value of experience is completely different and should be considered carefully. This is not just ignorance of what those experiences are; people who have experienced incredible suffering will attest to this as well. We humans are not typically reasonable when we are suffering, and we do not want our values judged by that unreasonable state of panic.

Taking the behavior of a human at his or her absolute worst in a state of existential panic and assigning to that behavior a moral value that supersedes all of the good in life is very problematic.

[aroneous]

Not most humans, only hedonists at best. Most would choose to submit to pain and suffering to protect family, for instance. People can choose to suffer and die for others.
In the moment of suffering, the brain's fight or flight response may kick in and make rational thought and decision making impossible, but that doesn't mean that suffering is infinite (or practically so) just because it breaks the rational mind.
For instance, it's not uncommon for people to report pain so intense they wanted to die, but nonetheless after the fact and in the light of day (being able to reason again) those same people are almost universally very glad that they did not die.

Likewise, rationally I may agree to water boarding for some sum of money that I think to be worth it. During said waterboarding, however, if you asked me if I wanted to continue I would probably be incapable of agreeing to (don't ask me how I know what waterboarding feels like). And every time you stopped half way I'd be mad later (after collecting my wits) and say stop asking me I already told you I wanted to.

You need to reflect on some important existential questions on hedonistic vs. preference systems of value, and how much value the rational mind has over the irrational one. Just because something is intense and seems in the moment it should be avoided at all costs, that doesn't mean that's true.

I guess when I said "avoided at all costs" I didn't mean it in an exactly literal sense (as to classify most people as hedonists), I mainly wanted to categorise a class of suffering that we are instinctually highly averse to. It's certainly true that most people would choose to experience suffering for some perceived greater good, but to what extent can the rational mind be trusted when an agreement is made in ignorance of what it is actually like (as they are not experiencing it in that moment)? And even after the fact, there is no way for the mind to "replay" this exact experience -- we could use our memory and imagination to recreate it to the best of our ability, but the experience itself will be lost to us the moment it ends.

Taking the behavior of a human at his or her absolute worst in a state of existential panic and assigning to that behavior a moral value that supersedes all of the good in life is very problematic.

It's not exactly that I'm taking seriously the preferences of the irrational mind, but rather that I am more aligned towards valuing the good and the bad on a case-by-case (rather than holistic/additive) basis, and from the perspective of the mind-subject that is experiencing them in the moment (rather than prospectively or retrospectively), for the exact reason that when we discuss whether or not some sentient being should be allowed to come into existence, no mind-subject exists yet to provide any other (necessarily subjective) valuation. If we have the means, preventing existence seems to be preferrable, as allowing someone to come into existence under conditions where such highly negative experiences are possible amounts to "imposing" our own value system upon them without their consent.

I think more vegans might see things from this perspective than you think -- when a non-vegan brings up that they think it's acceptable to kill animals that have had very good lives, vegans will often point to how the process of slaughter is still horrific, and even if it is painless, it robs the animal of experiencing any future good. By this they imply that non-existence is preferrable to frustrated preferences, regardless of the amount of net good involved (as the practical effect of veganism is to reduce the number of animals that are bred into existence).

Again, I don't think this necessarily implies desolation -- I believe there could be ways to prevent suffering without eliminating life (or even reproduction). My only real conclusion is that hypothetically, if we were to somehow immediately get access to technology that let us hit the "pause button" on animal reproduction (without any implication to our own well-being), it would be morally preferrable to use it, at least until we have found a way to prevent suffering at large.

[brimstoneSalad]

It's certainly true that most people would choose to experience suffering for some perceived greater good, but to what extent can the rational mind be trusted when an agreement is made in ignorance of what it is actually like (as they are not experiencing it in that moment)? And even after the fact, there is no way for the mind to "replay" this exact experience -- we could use our memory and imagination to recreate it to the best of our ability, but the experience itself will be lost to us the moment it ends.

If you're going down that road, why not the five minute hypothesis or solipsism?
Perhaps eating chocolate actually induces unthinkable suffering in those who seem to enjoy it, but we forget about it the moment we stop and it was so bad due to cognitive dissonance we have to fill in that memory gap with the belief we enjoyed it?

There are reasons why, for the sake of decision making and having a coherent picture of the world and our palace in it, we must have some level of trust in memory and compared experience. It's not very useful to second guess people's feelings about their own lived experiences and their assessments of those experiences relative to other experiences they've had. Objective claims about the world around us can be second guessed all day (and probably should), but in terms of what we feel about it, there's not usually much utility in that -- unless you're using it in service of an ad hoc hypothesis, but I think you'll find yourself called on that in any learned circle. When it comes to truth and knowledge in any meaningful sense, it's not valuable.

It's not exactly that I'm taking seriously the preferences of the irrational mind, but rather that I am more aligned towards valuing the good and the bad on a case-by-case (rather than holistic/additive) basis, and from the perspective of the mind-subject that is experiencing them in the moment (rather than prospectively or retrospectively),

There is no way to do that, though. It's a meaningless endeavor. Informed consent and memory is what we have, and it's the only comparator. If you're treating things in a case by case basis and discard the possibility of comparing them, you can no longer make any quantitative claims.

In that case you're throwing out any kind of utilitarianism, even NU, which is all quantitative.

for the exact reason that when we discuss whether or not some sentient being should be allowed to come into existence, no mind-subject exists yet to provide any other (necessarily subjective) valuation. If we have the means, preventing existence seems to be preferrable, as allowing someone to come into existence under conditions where such highly negative experiences are possible amounts to "imposing" our own value system upon them without their consent.

You can't impose by inaction unless you are withholding an assumed action for some reason.
Regardless, consent is not meaningful in these cases. Consent is only important when it CAN be given.

Please see here, where the consent argument is deconstructed:
wiki/index.php/Antinatalism#Consent_to_Exist

I think more vegans might see things from this perspective than you think -- when a non-vegan brings up that they think it's acceptable to kill animals that have had very good lives, vegans will often point to how the process of slaughter is still horrific, and even if it is painless, it robs the animal of experiencing any future good. By this they imply that non-existence is preferrable to frustrated preferences, regardless of the amount of net good involved (as the practical effect of veganism is to reduce the number of animals that are bred into existence).

They are not implying that. Those arguments are simply not well thought out.
The reason a "happy cow" killed after a couple years is not better than nothing has foremost to do with opportunity cost.
Those resources could be better put toward human flourishing.
And if it were a good use of resources in terms of bringing more good cow experience into the world, it would be better to have a single cow living longer rather than a series of cows being born and dying.

This is covered in some detail here:
viewtopic.php?t=2583

It's certainly not a question that can be as easily brushed aside by making anti-natalist arguments, which carry their own very problematic implications.

My only real conclusion is that hypothetically, if we were to somehow immediately get access to technology that let us hit the "pause button" on animal reproduction (without any implication to our own well-being), it would be morally preferrable to use it, at least until we have found a way to prevent suffering at large.

That's not clear to me, but it may be possible. However, how you're arriving at that conclusion I find more problematic than the conclusion itself (stated at least in such a limited way).