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00:00In Mesopotamian legend, Tiamat the dragon was the mother of all gods.
00:05She birthed the universe from the ocean.
00:07In Hawaiian mythology, Kanaloa is a sea god who controls the dead.
00:12In Old Norse, the kraken is a legendary sea monster.
00:16The ancient tales are long and many, but why do you think we still know so little about
00:23the ocean?
00:2671% of Earth's surface is water, and that water serves a crucial role in human activities
00:35such as travel, fishing, and the transportation of freight.
00:39In fact, some statistics put the volume of cargo carried via the sea as high as 80%.
00:46Well over 1 million people make a living sailing on merchant ships, 38 million people are fishermen,
00:54and historically, the countries with the largest navies have been the most powerful.
00:59The importance of the sea simply cannot be overstated, but despite the necessity of understanding
01:05it as well as possible, it remains famously unexplored, especially compared to outer space
01:12where no food is found whatsoever.
01:15There are many reasons why the deep seas haven't been explored in detail, from the lack of
01:21incentive to the sheer difficulty of building machines that can withstand those depths,
01:27but it's been proven over and over again that we can do these things.
01:32For instance, humans have been using submersible objects to go deeper underwater for hundreds
01:38of years, while modern submarines originated in the mid-19th century.
01:44Initially used for exploration, early submarines began being used in warfare in the 1860s.
01:50They were famously employed by both the Union and the Confederacy during the American Civil
01:55War.
01:56And back in the 1960s, influential French explorer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau
02:02completed his underwater habitat project, Conshelf II, proving that humans can live
02:08underwater.
02:09We've had this technology for years, but there's still something standing between
02:15us and conquering the depths.
02:18Perhaps the biggest problem we face when it comes to the oceans, however, is the idea
02:23of the ocean itself.
02:25Thalassophobia is a relatively niche fear that, while likely common to some degree in
02:31nearly everyone, isn't widely talked about.
02:34It's a fear of deep water, including the deepest bodies of water of all, the seas,
02:40but also large lakes and even deep enough swimming pools.
02:44To be classified as a phobia, something has to be irrational and affect someone's daily
02:50life.
02:51But phobias can start as completely understandable fears.
02:55It's widely accepted that the phobias of snakes and spiders, which are the most common
02:59phobias of all, come from an evolutionary response, as in many parts of the world, snakes
03:05and spiders are genuinely dangerous.
03:08It's the same story with deep water, as deep water is potentially deadly, far deadlier
03:15than spiders, which are estimated to kill somewhere between 6 to 11 people a year.
03:20In contrast, hundreds of thousands of people die annually from drowning.
03:26Swimming lessons are standard in schools around the world, while lifeguards are specially
03:31trained to rescue people in distress in water.
03:34Such is its danger.
03:36And the less we know about the ocean, the worse our thalassophobia might be.
03:42It's thought by some that the sea's darkness and scale represent the ultimate unknown and
03:47can reflect the deaths of the human subconscious.
03:51It's true that the size of the underwater world we cannot see is at the very least unsettling.
03:58This fear of the sea is reflected in the entirety of human culture.
04:03Perhaps the most famous story of the sea's destructive power is the myth of Atlantis,
04:08an advanced city plunged into the ocean after angering the Greek gods.
04:13Not only is Atlantis an allegory for why you should not forsake the gods, it also betrays
04:19a very real acknowledgement of the dangers the sea poses.
04:24It's important to remember that not only was ancient Greece a maritime power, but its
04:30islands are a volcanic archipelago that can cause unrest in the earth and sea.
04:36Poseidon was, after all, the god of the sea and earthquakes.
04:42Even in the modern day, people are enthralled by the idea that Atlantis is still out there
04:48at the bottom of the sea, waiting to be discovered.
04:52The other most prominent nautical myth is significantly more recent than Atlantis, the
04:57Bermuda Triangle.
04:59This corner of the Atlantic Ocean is notorious for the ships and planes that have vanished
05:04there in the last century or so.
05:06The truth is that statistically, a ship isn't more likely to sink in the Bermuda Triangle
05:12than anywhere else.
05:14The high number of disappearances can be attributed to it simply being a busy part of the sea
05:19prone to tropical storms.
05:22But the Bermuda Triangle remains a major part of pop culture.
05:26It's not the fact that the ships are sinking that's so intriguing, it's that they disappear,
05:31with very few wrecks ever located.
05:34This fits right in with the fear of the unknown that deep water also represents.
05:40People vanish into the sea, and they never return.
05:44Outside of popular myths and legends, there are historical events that also cement this
05:49fear of the sea.
05:51The most famous maritime disaster in history, without a doubt, the sinking of the Titanic
05:56in 1912, which caused the deaths of around 1,500 people and deeply traumatized the survivors.
06:04The image of the Titanic, the largest ship ever built at the time, sinking below the
06:09water in its entirety is something everybody is familiar with, and the sea is so huge that
06:16Despite knowing where the Titanic sank, it wasn't until the 1980s that the wreck was
06:22located.
06:23In a way, it makes sense that people want to believe the Bermuda Triangle is the work
06:28of aliens, or that Atlantis was sunk by the gods, because it's difficult to accept that
06:34the sea has all this power and wields it at random.
06:39Vessels have been disappearing since we started building them.
06:42Indeed, one of the aforementioned Civil War submarines mysteriously disappeared in South
06:48Carolina in 1864.
06:51At least aliens capturing Flight 19 or the USS Cyclops have a reason, which could be
06:57why people want to believe this story.
07:00There are, of course, other reasons stopping people from venturing into the depths, especially
07:06considering there are plenty who aren't scared of deep water.
07:10Those millions of fishermen and sailors, for instance.
07:13One of the biggest obstacles is the cost of deep sea exploration.
07:19While we do technically have all the knowledge that we need to explore and map the ocean
07:24in detail, nautical research just isn't being invested in enough.
07:29Sure, there are government organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
07:35as well as universities interested in this kind of research, but they don't have anywhere
07:40near the money they'd need to put the same attention on researching the ocean as we've
07:45put on researching space.
07:48This is despite the fact that the solar system's most promising alien worlds, Europa and Enceladus,
07:54are icy bodies with huge oceans.
07:57The technology we've developed to understand our own oceans will work on these planets.
08:02On the bright side, this means that one day, as space exploration develops, space and nautical
08:09research will coalesce with one shared goal, exploring the depths of Europa.
08:15So, it's not entirely a case of space exploration versus sea exploration.
08:21The two fields naturally benefit each other.
08:24But though we may have the technology to explore, that still doesn't make it any easier.
08:31The oceans have crushing pressure as you descend, and at their coldest are almost freezing and
08:36full of treacherous ice.
08:38They're also pitch black, the depths we know least about, all of which makes the deep
08:44sea an unappealing place, even if you aren't frightened.
08:49And while we do have technologies like submarines and underwater robots that are regularly used
08:55in research, these things are still very expensive in and of themselves.
09:00There also aren't any resources in the ocean to potentially exploit without consequence,
09:06unlike space and its metal-rich asteroids.
09:09The major thing is oil, and drilling for oil is something that shouldn't be happening
09:14anymore regardless.
09:15But, as Kennedy said when he was readying America for the moonshot, we choose to go
09:21to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
09:26And the same is true for worthwhile oceanic exploration.
09:31One day, we will need to explore the oceans, if only to further our research into space.
09:37But will we be able to surmount our evolutionary fear of the deep?
09:42And that's the real reason why we don't explore the oceans.
09:48What do you think?
09:49Is there anything we missed?
09:50Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you
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