I have 500 merits as hero member. Does it mean this is minimum and I can't lose it?

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Along with account sales, trust farming, cheating signature/bounty campaigns and all other shady activities I am sure we will see merit farming.
It won't change single thing about spamming:

Rank   Required activity   Required merit
Brand new   0                 0
Newbie   1                      0
Jr Member   30                0
Member   60                   10

Instead of spamming 30 days to reach junior member status we will see newbies spamming for 2-3 months until they reach member status and join  campaigns, and what will they do before they reach member status?
They will create more accounts, because they will need lots accounts to get merit points and rank up to higher ranks or they will just do "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" with other "I need merit" users.
Don't see how merit will help against spam.

On side note can you update this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats .