> If you didn't exist you wouldn't have preferences.

So if my living self prefers to live and my dead self has no preference, on average I prefer living over dying

Dying is not the opposite of living, it's its consequence and requirement (so far). If you prefer living, you also prefer dying.

It's also the inverse to being born.

Its opposite would be not living (and not being born, and not dying).

I'd say it's more that death is a price people would be willing to pay in return for getting to live for some number of years in the absence of any better options (like not dying).