>Indeed, it doesn’t matter what causes our emotional state, but it would be a mistake to think that the emotional state has no value. Even in the case of meaninglessness, it’s the sense of meaninglessness—the state of despondency—that is intrinsically bad, not the conclusion itself.

If everything is meaningless then there is no such thing as things that are intrinsically "good" or "bad". These words express human value judgements which vary from person to person, not objective statements that say something about the real qualities of a thing. Within this paradigm you yourself propose, suffering simply is, in the same manner that a frog is simply a frog, not good nor bad. To value these things as either good or bad is to find some meaning in them.

But let's look past this issue for a moment. Your "argument" for suffering being intrinsically bad is, from what I can tell, simply that it is bad because our emotional states tell us it's bad. Let's assume this argument is valid. In that case, we must also grant that most people associate their own existence with a positive emotional state, often even when they're suffering. By the same logic which claims that suffering is intrinsically bad, this would lead us to conclude that existence is intrinsically good. If you disagree then you need to show why it is that we should listen to what our emotional states tell us about suffering, but ignore what they tell us about existence.