‘Why? Because if we find mermaids we’ll have something intelligent that has hands and looks vaguely like us, and maybe then we’ll respect it? We have that. Chimpanzees, great apes, orangutans – they have hands, they look vaguely like us, and they’re intelligent enough to be considered people in a court of law. Dolphins don’t get that courtesy solely because they look more like fish than like the girl next door. Mermaids split the difference. Finding them won’t make us treat the oceans any better, and it won’t magically turn them into a protected species. If anything, it’s going to make them
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