Does true altruism exist?

Wall of text incoming. Answer this if you want to be bored to death. Or if you're reading Ann Coulter.

My partner introduced me to Bob Dylan today(well, yesterday). Which was all fine and dandy, until he played "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" which depressed me immensely; granted, bumming me out is a rather simple task. Either way, it got me ruminating. I find sympathy, empathy and kindness to be at its core the cornucopia of anthropomorphic projections and pathetic fallacies. Basically, altruism is the illusory manifestation of crustaceacentrism(Oxford should really make selfishism a word). What do you think?

I don't envisage myself as the poor black woman, or the many other victims of racism. I am, of course, the benevolent homunculus in this mental dramatis personae, decrying the atrocity of such atrocities condoned by indifference in difference. Why should harm towards someone other than myself offend me so?

Fact and internal consensus: Altruistic intuition manifested from genetically-approved selfish self-preservation. In-group kinship shattered by globalization, understanding of the law of large numbers and the fact that we are all hardly any different in the head.

If I were given a choice, I would gladly give my life for Hattie. But why? I no longer care for my life, but I care for the life and freedom(what is life without freedom?(There! Selfish empathy!)) of others, and it's the irrational passion to preserve that life which gives me what little strength I need to carry on. It's not because I believe it's right, it's just that I'd like it to be so. I call it altruistic hedonism.

I've rooted around my head for any signs of self-interest, and yet I can find none. I suspect it must be in my basal ganglia or somewhere I cannot access. Note that I am an amoral lad, so being a selfish chancer should not embarrass me in the slightest.

What I'm getting at is the existence of true altruism. Would anyone give up a comfortable, happy life for someone else? If, for example, you were to be presented with the choice of a getting a billion quid by a sexually ambiguous genie, on the caveat that one stranger in Canada would have pay for your gift with her/his life, would you do it?

I find this to be a great conundrum. I could take the money and save an entire legion of lives, all at the expense of some stranger I've never known and never will. And yet this would mean taking away the stranger's will and his freedom to choose whether to live or die, which I personally find abhorrent. Despite the coward that I am(at least, in my mind. I wish I were more predisposed to flight than fight in real life, it's so much wiser. Bad people:"HULK ANGRY!". Thoughts of bad people:"hulk hide..." ), I simply couldn't shrink away from potentially saving all those who lay moribund upon their deathbeds, depriving them from the freedom to get their backs off the weight, and arbitrarily withholding their potential to live happy, fulfilling lives.

It's painfully utilitarian, yet also painfully counter-intuitive for an entity that runs off empathy and kindness.

It's my inability to comprehend the suffering of more than one person at a time which leads me to such mathematically irrational hesitation. I simply cannot process, cannot imagine the pain of 1000 people with my one nervous system, other than vicariously and carelessly multiplying the pain one person ostensibly feels. (nebulous 1) x 1 = (nebulous 1)

This is where pathetic projection fails and crumbles, shattering the illusion of kindness.

Altruism is going out of the way to benefit others intentionally without any personal gain. I find pleasure in it, but yet that would mean emotional gain and thus could not be true altruism. Thus, I must be selfish to be altruistic, otherwise I'd be completely indifferent to the very notion in the first place. If I performed the altruistic, and yet did not care for others, it would be an arbitrary eenie miney minnie moe situation where miney and moe are both the opposites of altruism. Thus, the apparent intent in my choice for altruism would simply be nothing more than an illusion.

What if a person were ready to burn in the flames of Muspelheim, to provide eternal happiness for everyone else? Granted that he was in full possession of his faculties(i.e. not contaminated by superstition)(this is demanding some serious paradoxical suspension of disbelief, though we could always include religious, imperialistic alien superbeings), I do not believe it to be presumptuous to assume that he did it for catharsis, that the happiness of others is projected on to him. Arguably, such catharsis is small payment in return for being burnt for eternity, and thus any emotional gain is immediately outweighed. It must be true altruism then?

I think it is. So, confirmation and thoughts on the matter?