Back in 1961 at Yale University, a young psychologist named Stanley Milgram devised an ingenious experiment that managed to demonstrate just how utterly lost any hope is for humanity. The Milgram Experiment was above the board in all scientific respects, but as far revealing horror goes, it destroys all comers.

To get to the bottom of how malleable human conscience is in the face of authority, Milgram recruited nice, salt-of-the-earth, God-fearing New Haven, Conn., residents and asked them to serve as “teachers” in what he told them was a study to determine how negative reinforcement improves memory. The negative reinforcement in this case was a nasty little electric shock delivered anytime a “student” got an answer wrong. Seated at what they thought was a real machine, the teachers could clearly see their students seated in another room, strapped to a chair…