This thing is turning into a tautology. I care about people to the degree that they are useful to me. My friends and family are incredibly useful in the great state of mind they put me in. A person living in extreme poverty I have never met, not so much. They could be useful were they highly educated and had access to sufficient capital to leverage their knowledge complementary to my skills, but the initial investment far exceeds the potential gain.

What irks me is not the statement above but the tradeoff being made in utilitarianism: That the pain of other people should count as much as my pain. It simply does not.