Let's try it this way. Say there was a genie who could make anyone die, and they were doing an experiment to see how much monetary value people gave to a human life. What they do is approach someone and say here's what will happen. I'm going to name someone somewhere in the world. You might know them, you might not. Then, I'm gonna start an auction on their life. I'll start at (say) $10 and keep going up until you think that makes it worthwhile to you, where you think that's the lowest amount you're willing to accept to have them die."

And the first name they give you is Wally Wong in Beijing, someone you don't know at all. That's the first trial.

Let's say he repeats this experiment around the world, always where the first person is a complete stranger to the participant. He gets the data and finds out that for a stranger to die, the average person only needs some small amount (say $1000) to be ok with it.

Then he starts the second trial. The genie says to you "Mary Killarny who lives on the next street." You still don't know her, but she does live close to you, so somehow her life seems to be worth more. And after he asks everyone in the world the same question, there's some average figure that's somewhat higher than the first one.

Great, he thinks. The closer they are to someone the more they value that person's life.

Then he starts thinking about friends and family. So he starts by naming some distant acquaintance of yours, he names your second cousin, who you've met a few times in your life but aren't in regular touch with, he names one of your old schoolteachers, or whatever. The average value goes up.

He keeps going along and eventually he gets to your closest relatives.

So, he asks about your child. How much to let little Bobby die?

You tell him to go fuck himself. He says no, that doesn't fit into my analysis, I need a number. You tell him to go fuck himself again. You won't trade little Bobby for infinite riches. That's how much you love your kid.

So he has various figures for all sorts of people you don't know, and distant acquaintances or relatives, etc., but he can't get a number for people who are close to them because 99.99% of people tell him to go fuck himself for even posing the question. How is he then going to figure out the average value of a human life? Where does he plug 'go fuck yourself' into the equation?