How would humanity react if Mermaids were real?

[Zixinus]

In the long term, they likely will either go extinct or survive in "reservations". Or in zoos if they are more animal than sentient.

Churches and whatnot may not demonize them, especially if popular response is curiosity and positive. Churches may invest some new bullshit or go re-interpreting obscure parts of their various holy books to show that their religion predicted mermaids and thus if right. Expect some churches to try and rub the existence of mermaids to somehow show that they know better than secular science or something.

Mer-people with spears are obviously not a threat to humanity (a conclusion that even Joe Average could quickly reach), so they'll be media darlings. Hopefully, some laws will pop up to protect them, but these will likely be misguided, for-show or even silly.
If they are actually sapient, their chances are better at survival with humanity but I wouldn't say that they are insured. The mermaids will be not only at the usual disadvantage human hunter-gatherer societies would have, but also have the problem that they have to rely on human sympathizers just to communicate with surface-dwellers. Their own cannot go among human society to learn how that (human society) actually works. There may be overall measures to allow them to survive but not much else.

But overall, people will eventually lose interest and the mer-people will get the same treatment many hunter-gatherer societies have gotten in the modern world.
Only this time, this hunter-gatherer society lives not on specific land that people may or may not want, but in eco-systems they are suited for. I don't know what the documentary says on how they can adapt to different waters, but I'm willing to wager that they'd have problems. I'm also willing to bet that water pollution from god-knows-how-many sources will not help them either. How many large-bodied marine species died from extinction in the 20th century?

[Nitrophage]

Someone mentioned that the US (and likely other) navies would damage them with high powered sonar tests. IIRC this was actually a plot point in the documentary, with carcasses being discovered amongst the mass beachings of whales & dolphins. But honestly I disagree with the general opinion that they will be wiped out for a couple of reasons;

1. They haven't been detected yet, implying that their population density, at least in ocean regions where there is much human activity is quite low. Unsurprising for hunter-gatherers I suppose.

2. There is going to be no immediate reason to harm them, much in the same way that in most of the world's waters (I'm looking at you, China) dolphins swim rather unmolested

3. There will be an unprecedented amount of support for their protection. Think about what the Whale Wars guys (forget the name of the organisation) do for non-sapient organisms, and then think what the pressure to protect the only other hominids on the planet would be. Yes, plenty of humans suffer and are exploited horrendously, but that is largely let pass due to lack of interest in their cause. Mermaids are damn interesting, and from the point of view of conservation, that makes all the difference in the world.

P.S. This is my first post here. Hi guys!

[Zixinus]

I have watched the documentary too. I think that it is inferior to its spiritual predecessor "The last dragon". There, the focus was the creature and its biology. Here, the mermaids with their life and biology are shoved into an interchangeable module of what is essentially a weak X-files conspiracy theory. They actually use the words "this is big brother".

Never mind that the navy should have realized that if random scientists picked up on their infra-sound weapon test and got it to the matter of public record, the security of their tests is already compromised. The whale-beaching already call attention to the navy. I'm not an intelligence analyst, but I am willing to bet that if civilian citizens can stumble upon your top-secret-weapon testing, so will foreign spies (of course, this is another characteristic of conspiracy theories: the Big-Brother-Government is ALWAYS more worried about its own citizens than foreign intelligence agents).

Even if somehow they cannot use lakes (I'm quite willing to guess that there are enough lakes throughout the USA for there to be one abandoned yet big enough), they could have made their cover-up work easier by moving their tests away from whale migratory lines. I am sure that there HAS to be an area of ocean under US control not frequented by either humans or whales (and thus, by proxy, mermaids) where they can test their weapons against ships or submarines or whatever.

Never mind that they could have dodged the whole mermaids-problem by making a deal with the Noah-people: the navy hands over their specimen and other findings, and in exchange Noah will be contractually obligated to put their discovery in a story that does not imply Navy involvement and chalk up the whale-shoring to natural causes. There, the Navy does not have to worry much about the mermaids, their involvement will be remembered in positive light and they don't have to use all sorts of bureaucratic muscle to discredit the Noah team. Humanity can have its darling moment with the mermaids and the Navy can work on its weapon.

[/rant]

Anyway, a little information about mermaids as they were depicted in the show:

They use spears, that is one of the big giveaways of their existence. One item that was a spearhead made out of partially-split bone (I think it was bone) that had a stingray-stinger (IIRC) in it, lashed together with some kind of plant. That is tool-creation, not just tool-use.

Also, the scientists never got to see this, but they shown how a group of mermaids safeguarded the group from a big shark: a scout that went forward and saw the shark took its spear and cut itself. Its blood attracted the shark away from the main group (that included children). Naturally the one doing the self-cutting was eaten (the ficocumentary showed the team getting mermaid body parts from a shark's belly).

Also, the mermaids partially domesticated dolphins, who they hunt with. They taught the dolphins a hunting tactic (call dolphins that will then chase the fishes toward the fisherman) that the dolphins learned so well that humans use it too (I don't know whether that bit was real or not, I suspect it is real and the story just attributes this behavior of dolphins to mermaids rather than humans).

They also live with whales, as they offer protection from Orcas (sp?). It is implied that this relationship is symbiotic, although I don't recall what the mermaids give to the whales.

One problem I have, is how do mermaids sleep? Humans need around 8 hours of sleep, how would mermaids archive that in open water and while having to breath air?


One problem I forsee is that due to the mermaid's linked nature with whales, there will be even more calling for stricter protection of the whales. The Japanese will not like that.

[bilateralrope]

One problem I forsee is that due to the mermaid's linked nature with whales, there will be even more calling for stricter protection of the whales. The Japanese will not like that.

Especially when mermaids sink a whaling ship after an anti-whaling group starts arming the mermaids.

[Irbis]

2. There is going to be no immediate reason to harm them, much in the same way that in most of the world's waters (I'm looking at you, China) dolphins swim rather unmolested

Indifference? How would Sub captain know there are any nearby before firing high powered sonar? Or how would cruising high-speed Carrier group know their screws are are about to turn group of these into tuna chunks? Very few animals can move out of the way of 30+ knot ship unless swimming deeper, which might not be an option for air breather.

Then, you have 'conservative' politicians arguing cleaning waste our industry dumps into rivers is too expensive and telling the mermen to hightail it out of US territorial waters if they have problem with it.

3. There will be an unprecedented amount of support for their protection. Think about what the Whale Wars guys (forget the name of the organisation) do for non-sapient organisms, and then think what the pressure to protect the only other hominids on the planet would be. Yes, plenty of humans suffer and are exploited horrendously, but that is largely let pass due to lack of interest in their cause. Mermaids are damn interesting, and from the point of view of conservation, that makes all the difference in the world.

Spain recently tried to offer primate apes similar legal protections to humans, not mere animals. Amount of howling it caused from right wingers was insane, and that was about closest relatives of Homo Sapiens, not some fishes. If there are humans hunting and eating apes, I am pretty sure you can find some willing to do so with mermen. Especially if some idiot Chinese traditional medicine specialist declares them an aphrodisiac.

Even if somehow they cannot use lakes (I'm quite willing to guess that there are enough lakes throughout the USA for there to be one abandoned yet big enough), they could have made their cover-up work easier by moving their tests away from whale migratory lines. I am sure that there HAS to be an area of ocean under US control not frequented by either humans or whales (and thus, by proxy, mermaids) where they can test their weapons against ships or submarines or whatever.

Lakes have sweet, not salty water (important for quite a few reasons), have depths measured in meters, not kilometers, and any lake big enough to have kilometer distances required is bound to have some shore settlements. I doubt it would work.

One problem I have, is how do mermaids sleep? Humans need around 8 hours of sleep, how would mermaids archive that in open water and while having to breath air?

Same way as dolphins? They breathe air, too.

[Zixinus]

Spain recently tried to offer primate apes similar legal protections to humans, not mere animals. Amount of howling it caused from right wingers was insane, and that was about closest relatives of Homo Sapiens, not some fishes.

Except that just doesn't apply here. These hypothetical mermen are CLOSER than chimps. Mermen have much earlier ancestors and share more traits unique to humans (as crazy as that sounds about two species where one lives in the oceans and the other on land).

These "fishes" have human faces, have spoken language, domesticated dolphins (to a degree, arguably) and have more complex tool creation than what we see with chimps. At the very least. We might have seen more traits if the program would have allowed the mermaids to be about themselves in their own show, rather than a pathetic x-files ripoff.

I mean, look at them:



That's a much more human face than a chimp's. Even if it is obviously CGI.

Lakes have sweet, not salty water (important for quite a few reasons), have depths measured in meters, not kilometers, and any lake big enough to have kilometer distances required is bound to have some shore settlements. I doubt it would work.

I apologize if I write overtly long sentences, but I also written in the same sentence what could the Navy do if that were the case: Move away from whale migratory routes. Or even test those weapons at areas whales have left during endpoints of their migration (go to the North area while the whales are south and vice versa). The USA has access to two big oceans, there has to be a few dead spots. They'd have to move it anyway.

Same way as dolphins? They breathe air, too.

Yeah, but dolphins evolved to do that over 50 million years. It's a complex trait, as it involves shutting down one hemisphere while the other is still active thus swimming, breathing and watching out for predators.
Homo, which includes neanderthals, homo erectus, and their direct ancestor, is about 2.5 million years old. Or even if we go back to the first bipedal apes, that's about 7-8 millions of years ago.

Then again, we are talking about a species that developed long water-tails and sonar (IIRC the damn thing) under that time, so I'm looking at a dent in a picture full of holes...

[The Romulan Republic]

One problem I forsee is that due to the mermaid's linked nature with whales, there will be even more calling for stricter protection of the whales. The Japanese will not like that.

Especially when mermaids sink a whaling ship after an anti-whaling group starts arming the mermaids.

Would eco-terrorist groups be able to get ahold of weapons that could sink a ship? I doubt ordinary firearms would cut it, and I doubt those groups would be able to get ahold of a submarine or an anti-ship missile.

Maybe they could give the mermaids some mines.

[Irbis]

Would eco-terrorist groups be able to get ahold of weapons that could sink a ship? I doubt ordinary firearms would cut it, and I doubt those groups would be able to get ahold of a submarine or an anti-ship missile.

Maybe they could give the mermaids some mines.

1) Give mermen lenght of line with steel reinforcement;
2) Have 2 of them string it on ship's patch;
3) Wait till the screw catches it and becomes hopelessly entangled;
4) Hammer steel wedge into rudder or any other means of steering;
5) Profit.

[Purple]

One problem I forsee is that due to the mermaid's linked nature with whales, there will be even more calling for stricter protection of the whales. The Japanese will not like that.

Especially when mermaids sink a whaling ship after an anti-whaling group starts arming the mermaids.

Would eco-terrorist groups be able to get ahold of weapons that could sink a ship? I doubt ordinary firearms would cut it, and I doubt those groups would be able to get ahold of a submarine or an anti-ship missile.

Maybe they could give the mermaids some mines.

You don't really need to sink a ship to make an impact thou. Just firing off an RPG-7 (which you can get for peanuts) and blasting half of the superstructure would make headlines. Hell just strafing the ship with a bunch of AK's would do the job fine. And if you feel that is not enough and you really want to make an impact there is no reason why you could not make an underwater IED if you have access to the materials (fertilizer and metal piping) and a race of intelligent humanoids that come prepackaged with advanced diving skills and experience in underwater tool use. And a fertilizer bomb detonated under the keel of a fishing ship would sink it in no time.

[Nitrophage]

[/quote]
You don't really need to sink a ship to make an impact thou. Just firing off an RPG-7 (which you can get for peanuts) and blasting half of the superstructure would make headlines. Hell just strafing the ship with a bunch of AK's would do the job fine. And if you feel that is not enough and you really want to make an impact there is no reason why you could not make an underwater IED if you have access to the materials (fertilizer and metal piping) and a race of intelligent humanoids that come prepackaged with advanced diving skills and experience in underwater tool use. And a fertilizer bomb detonated under the keel of a fishing ship would sink it in no time.[/quote]

I can see some problems with this line of thinking. Firstly, on a mechanical standpoint I'm not sure on the way military equipment stands up to being immersed in saltwater for prolonged periods. Even famously rugged hardware like the AK is still made of steel.
An improvised bomb would need to be very well built indeed to be set off after weeks underwater (remember radio signals won't work underwater)
Secondly, I don't know whether the mermaids would be able to pull this off. Leaving aside communication difficulties with their human allies, standard arms would be something they would struggle seriously to use. It's hard to pull a trigger with webbed fingers. What's more carrying anything much denser than water over a prolonged distance may be beyond them (A twenty pound hunk of ANFO is effective but heavy and takes both arms to carry, impairing swimming ability)

Finally, I don't think that violence is really going to help their PR case, especially when they get confused and bomb/strafe a cruise liner by mistake (An inevitability when arming a palaeolithic society that may or may not be of fully human intelligence). And if public opinion on the surface turns against them, I expect their survival time in the wild to be measured in Planck times.

[Zixinus]

Firearms that are modified to withstand being underwater are few and specialized. There are a few weapons meant to be fired from underwater, but these are even more specialized and I have doubts whether they can be simply brought. Even if they somehow can be, the mermaids will be completely reliant on surface-dwelling allies for ammunition. At which point, the surface-dwellers themselves might as well do the shooting.

A more practical choice would be to give spearguns. What little search I did, suggests that spearguns are more like underwater crossbows. They can be re-cocked and reloaded underwater (and from what I gather, should be reloaded underwater), so they could use it until it brakes.

However, to cut nets, what they may need is knives (or even tools probably developed for that purpose). They cannot smelt iron, so giving them tools to destroy nets more effectively may also help with their survival. It would be more difficult to contest too, as knives for them would be regular tools for their day-to-day life.

But either way, there is a simpler way of denying whalers their catch: as soon as the mermaids see the whalers, scare the whale away. They probably already know how to do that and may be doing it already. I don't know whether you can create an underwater whistle or something like it that would help them.

They can also attach GPS trackers on the whaling ships and then let Sea Shepherd ram them or Greenpeace block them.

[SMJB]

As to exploitation, that might not be a bad thing, necessarily. South Korea, Taiwan, and many other Asian nations only have the economy they do today because some capitalist exploited their people for cheap labor. To understand why things happened the way they did, it's important to not just look at them from the European/First World perspective. Why did Indians trade with Europeans? Because they were giving away futuristic metal tools and weapons for the low, low price of a few measly beaver pelts, of course. In that same vein, the modern world has lots of things that would be extremely useful to mermaids (harpoons, fishing nets, scuba gear) that they can get for the low, low price of helping to set a few pylons.

As to the whole whaling argument, remember that, whatever their special relationship with whales is, these are still hunter-gatherer nomad types. I sincerely doubt whaling will upset them overmuch.

Spain recently tried to offer primate apes similar legal protections to humans, not mere animals. Amount of howling it caused from right wingers was insane, and that was about closest relatives of Homo Sapiens, not some fishes. If there are humans hunting and eating apes, I am pretty sure you can find some willing to do so with mermen. Especially if some idiot Chinese traditional medicine specialist declares them an aphrodisiac.

The thing is that from what I'm hearing these mermaids are people, whereas apes are, well, apes.

That one in front clearly has breasts, but no nipples? At first I blew that off as the show trying to keep things below an R rating, but then it occurred to me that I've never seen a dolphin's nipples (not that I've ever looked, but still), either, so maybe there's a legitimate biological reason for this instance of Barbie doll anatomy. Any guesses?

[Zixinus]

In that same vein, the modern world has lots of things that would be extremely useful to mermaids (harpoons, fishing nets, scuba gear) that they can get for the low, low price of helping to set a few pylons.

What pylons (are you talking about buoys)? Is there difficulty setting these pylons by humans who know how to swim? Who can also use scuba-gear? And why would mermaids, whose most technologically complicated items are spears and nets, be good at this? You'd need special equipment just to communicate with them, never mind try to explain to them whatever technical thing you want to archive.

You also appear confused on the definition of "exploitation". Exploitation inherently implies that those exploited are victimized and treated unfairly. There is no "good" exploitation, because then it wouldn't be exploitation.

American Indians who traded iron tools for beaver pelts were not exploited, they were just traded with. If anything, it was an example of non-exploitation (although it wouldn't be surprising if it turned out that the NA Indians were underpaid in the value of the items they traded for).

A full list of exploitation that just the North American Indians underwent would require entire books to detail and was usually defined as "white people forcing american indians to do things against their will". An example I feel I can confidently point at, is the Indian Removal Act of 1830, where entire American Indians tribes were forced away from their native land for the sake of replacing them with white farmers.

There is a long, long list of exploitation and atrocities committed against Native American Indians. I am certain I can find much more if I took the time to research more examples. I am certain that your Asian countries example could be similarly examined.

That one in front clearly has breasts, but no nipples? At first I blew that off as the show trying to keep things below an R rating, but then it occurred to me that I've never seen a dolphin's nipples (not that I've ever looked, but still), either, so maybe there's a legitimate biological reason for this instance of Barbie doll anatomy. Any guesses?

Dolphins have what are described as "genetilia slits", with the male having testes inside the body and a retractable penis. The female has separate slits for both nipples. These slits help keep the animal streamlined. According this site the baby dolphins can twist their tongues into straws to feed on breastmilk.

So, no. We should either see nipples or slits. Since nipples would not be allowed to keep the R rating and slits would be just disturbing (and a bit problematic, as dolphins have nipples close to their vagina). The belly-bottom is elongated for some reason, but it doesn't look like a slit. They'd still need nipples to feed baby mermaids as they are still mammals. I don't know how they could have their young be fed on breastmilk without swallowing seawater, aside surfacing.

As to the whole whaling argument, remember that, whatever their special relationship with whales is, these are still hunter-gatherer nomad types. I sincerely doubt whaling will upset them overmuch.

Why the hell do you assume that? If they are mostly human in mind (which we have reasons to assume so), they'll not exactly be rational when a whaling ship kills the creature they have quasi-tamed and lived most of their lives. Especially if the whales don't instantly kill the animal and it screams in agony while it dies.

And even if they were somehow bizarrely rational, why should they just shrug off the killing of animals that they grew up with and rely on? Even if the whales are as intelligent as an elephant (which is likely, as they have [url=http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/facts.html]pretty heavy brains, brains that are often heavier than an adult human's![\url]), the mermaids can claim that they own the whales.

The mermaids need the whales to protect them from orca attacks. The documentary made that clear. If you kill the whales, they'll be more exposed to orca attacks (and probably attacks by other predators) and will be in more danger (and mermaids die) than if there wouldn't be whaling. Ergo, yes, the mermaids would care about whaling, at least the mermaids that are attached to whales.

[Purple]

I can see some problems with this line of thinking. Firstly, on a mechanical standpoint I'm not sure on the way military equipment stands up to being immersed in saltwater for prolonged periods. Even famously rugged hardware like the AK is still made of steel.

You don't need to use it or store it under water. Just put it in a sealed container with instructions for the meremen to open it when they surface to attack, sneak up while swimming on the surface for a while and discard or return them to the packaging afterward.

An improvised bomb would need to be very well built indeed to be set off after weeks underwater (remember radio signals won't work underwater)

Why bother with radio signals? Just make an improvised contact mine. Again a sealed container and a relatively simple fuse would do. Hell with the kind of money PETA and its like have you could even issue the meremen magnetic mines they can just float in the way of wailing ships.

Secondly, I don't know whether the mermaids would be able to pull this off. Leaving aside communication difficulties with their human allies, standard arms would be something they would struggle seriously to use. It's hard to pull a trigger with webbed fingers. What's more carrying anything much denser than water over a prolonged distance may be beyond them (A twenty pound hunk of ANFO is effective but heavy and takes both arms to carry, impairing swimming ability)

You can get around the webbed fingers problem by simply redesigning the trigger and removing the trigger guard. And the weight issue is largely lessened by the fact that you are operating under water and can thus use buoyancy aids (balloons full of air) to make things lighter.

Finally, I don't think that violence is really going to help their PR case, especially when they get confused and bomb/strafe a cruise liner by mistake (An inevitability when arming a palaeolithic society that may or may not be of fully human intelligence). And if public opinion on the surface turns against them, I expect their survival time in the wild to be measured in Planck times.

I newer advocated that it would be a smart thing to do. I only wanted to make a note that it is not as hard as it seems to be if you put your mind to doing it. And you happen to be a crazy environmentalist.