In the long run, there is nothing to stop intelligent agents from identifying the molecular signature of experience below hedonic zero and eliminating it altogether — even in insects. Nociception is vital; pain is optional. I tentatively predict that the world's last unpleasant experience in our forward light-cone will be a precisely datable event — perhaps some micro-pain in an obscure marine invertebrate a few centuries hence.
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"[https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-radical-plan-to-eliminate-earths-predatory-species-1613342963 The Radical Plan to Phase out Earth's Predatory Species]", io9, 30 Jul. 2014