It's worth noting that in the Milgram experiment, there is no perceived punishment for failure to participate, just a polite repetition. Further, the Milgram experiment models willingness to stop acting in accordance with orders, rather that willingness to act against orders, which, while morally fairly indistinguishable, are psychologically (and legally) substantially different.
It's my understanding that people prefer to go counterclockwise in all sorts of situations, it might just be that.
Baba Yaga has "been dead for six hundred years," and a quick Wikipedia search suggests the historical myth is first recorded in 1755, nor can I find anything particularly relating her to being from around ~1400. Nicholas Flamel is six centuries old (canonically, he was born in 1327), which means the Philosopher's Stone, if it exists, is around the same age.
Not sure what kind of coherent theory you can come up with to put it all together, though... Voldemort = Baba Yaga seems a little... silly, especially given Quirrell talking about female wiza...
I would say the likeliest explanation is that people do care, but only insofar as it enables them to signal that they care. Caring much farther than that is pretty much pointless, from an evolutionary perspective, and probably actively detrimental.
Unless, of course, the machinery for caring is much simpler when it's simply "care" vs "not care". Pretending to care could be a much more complicated neurological adaptation that would be more wasteful than just implementing a nice "Sympathy" subsystem.
I mean, the way humans model each other's behavior is by looking at our own self in other people's scenarios, and then making minor adjustments for accuracy's sake, since they think a little differently. I mean, why would you invent an entire subsystem just for understanding ot... (read more)