Imagine that some trick of technology would allow each of us to experience the feelings of every living person as our own for a single moment, all of them at once and with that uniformity of size with which one sees the cities of the world from space.
Would that moment of purest empathy elicit joy or despair? Would all of the first kisses outweigh all of the children crying themselves to sleep in hunger? Would all of the bouts of laughter and smiles outmeasure the sick dying alone and forgotten? Would all the pieces of happiness make the suffering palatable?