[HN Gopher] Kaitiakitanga Maori Data Sovereignty Licences
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Kaitiakitanga Maori Data Sovereignty Licences
        
       Author : edent
       Score  : 63 points
       Date   : 2021-08-24 08:41 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.taiuru.maori.nz)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.taiuru.maori.nz)
        
       | anothernewdude wrote:
       | Reminds me of time cube
        
         | beepbooptheory wrote:
         | ok I am now resolved to try and never look at HN comments
         | again. Been really trying, but at this point I think the
         | general chauvinism is pretty invariable. nothing to save here
         | anymore
        
       | h2odragon wrote:
       | > 6.1 Maori Data is ever only loan. Non Maori can not own Maori
       | data.
       | 
       | Tomorrow: "80% of the world's publishers discover Maori heritage,
       | re-incorporate in NZ"
        
         | msla wrote:
         | How Maori is Maori? Where's the line drawn? Is it a one-drop
         | rule or does there have to be some blood quantum? Otherwise,
         | well, humans disperse and intermingle and at some point it's
         | like asking who qualifies as a Visigoth, or an Etruscan.
        
           | thebooktocome wrote:
           | This is addressed in the license.
        
         | Y_Y wrote:
         | > This comment is property of brown-eyes. Blue-eyes can never
         | own this data.
         | 
         | That's an absolutely bananas concept. It's fine to tie
         | something like a person's personal identifying data to
         | themselves, isn't it absurd to have some racial/tribal
         | restriction on a piece of information?
        
           | SuoDuanDao wrote:
           | Under a western concept of ownership, yes. There are systems
           | of ownership, particularly among tribal societies, where
           | things are owned by a collective. The interface can get
           | weird, but if you think of the tribe as a corporation that is
           | its own legal entity distinct from the members it's not
           | actually that foreign.
        
             | Y_Y wrote:
             | What I don't like about that concept is that it imposes
             | restrictions on people in the tribe that I feel are unfair.
             | If you want to share some of your Maori knowledge with a
             | non-Maori how can you go about it? Do you need approval
             | from 51% of all official members, or the board of directors
             | or what?
             | 
             | I think that cultural heritage belongs to humanity as a
             | whole, and even if it didn't then there would be plenty of
             | people who would just take what they "inherit" from their
             | ancestors and share it with the rest of the world.
        
               | spoonjim wrote:
               | There is a corporate analog here in the form of a non-
               | disclosure agreement. If you don't want to be part of the
               | Maori community anymore, you can leave, like you can quit
               | your job at Apple, but you're still not allowed to share
               | Apple's knowledge with anyone else.
        
               | Y_Y wrote:
               | But you don't opt-in to being Maori, nor can you opt-out.
               | 
               | If you say that you could just stop hanging out with
               | other Maori then fine, but does that disinherit you from
               | the cultural heritage?
        
               | spoonjim wrote:
               | I guess I'm just saying that your access to the cultural
               | heritage can be contingent upon you following the rules
               | (ie Don't tell outsiders). If you break those rules, the
               | community should be allowed to ostracize you within the
               | bounds set by law (ie no burning your house down or
               | anything).
        
               | blacktriangle wrote:
               | Not only unfair, they're downright restrictive to growth.
               | There's a reason that no civilization with such concepts
               | of tribal ownership has developed into anything
               | worthwhile, they're basically living the tragedy of the
               | commons at its maximal level.
        
               | cool_dude85 wrote:
               | >There's a reason that no civilization with such concepts
               | of tribal ownership has developed into anything
               | worthwhile
               | 
               | Which civilizations are "worthwhile" and which are not?
        
               | KittenInABox wrote:
               | Ascribing _one person 's position_ (the person suggesting
               | sovereignity licenses) to be an examplar of how _entire
               | cultures_ haven 't "developed into anything worthwhile"
               | is racist.
               | 
               | Relevant XKCD comic, of course: https://xkcd.com/385/
        
               | SuoDuanDao wrote:
               | I'm not familiar with the Maori in particular, but most
               | traditional cultures prior to the Gutenberg revolution
               | had special knowledge that they tried to keep to
               | themselves. Typically there were a class of people who
               | were responsible for both ensuring that the knowledge
               | didn't get lost or become available to the wrong people.
               | Typically learning this knowledge required first
               | committing to guarding its secrecy, so I wouldn't agree
               | it's an unfair restriction on the people who have it. It
               | might not be useful for the culture in the long term, but
               | then again it might. These cultures have seen some ages
               | pass.
               | 
               | If the argument is just that everyone benefits when
               | licenses are more free I wouldn't disagree, but having
               | the option to impose different licenses doesn't seem like
               | a bad thing. And whatever the details, that's what this
               | boils down to, a particular set of restrictions on the
               | use of a particular set of data.
        
           | ivanbakel wrote:
           | I think your example is discarding too much of the context.
           | Rather than considering this through a racial lens, I think
           | it would be more accurate to view it as an act of cultural
           | stewardship - where the cultural separation, as in many parts
           | of the world, largely follows racial and tribal lines.
           | 
           | When thought of as a cultural act, it makes much more sense.
           | Cultures implicitly lay claim to information i.e. their
           | cultural heritage, all the time. It's also less surprising
           | that you can find the concept itself "bananas", because the
           | value system of your culture won't necessarily line up with
           | that of other cultures and their stewards.
        
             | luckylion wrote:
             | > Cultures implicitly lay claim to information i.e. their
             | cultural heritage, all the time.
             | 
             | They do? How do you "own" cultural heritage? It sounds like
             | the first step before accusing others of cultural robbery
             | when they wear their hair a certain way or have a tattoo.
             | 
             | I get the impression that anyone being in favor for that
             | kind of thing hasn't thought it through. If your ethnic
             | group can lay claim to some hairstyle, the dominant group
             | automatically gets to claim all the stuff they introduced
             | you to. It's a bad trade to get to decide who can wear
             | dread locks, but have to give up all the benefits of modern
             | society.
        
           | AlanYx wrote:
           | I tend to agree with you, but there are a lot of academics
           | currently pushing variations of the concept articulated in
           | the linked article.
           | 
           | The has been a decent amount of advocacy for IP rights for
           | various forms "indigenous traditional knowledge" bubbling
           | around academia and WIPO for years. Article 31 of the United
           | Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
           | (UNDRIP) basically expanded the scope of that IP debate
           | beyond "traditional knowledge" to new stuff created by
           | indigenous peoples. New Zealand is currently pushing this
           | area the hardest, but eventually most countries that ratify
           | UNDRIP will end up with at least proposals in this area. The
           | stomach in academia and some policy circles for pushing this
           | stuff right now is pretty strong.
        
           | lmilcin wrote:
           | It is only bananas if you don't understand Maori culture.
           | 
           | In Maori culture there is no such thing as absolute property
           | right. Things are not ever really owned. They are more like
           | owned collectively and borrowed based on need.
           | 
           | Then western people came and gave them maori bosses couple
           | trinkets which Maori thought is to borrow the property but
           | westerners thought they are buying the property.
           | 
           | It is a bit complicated. You can read up on it in Francis's
           | Fukuyama "The origins of political order"
        
             | Y_Y wrote:
             | I think information and land have salient differences. It's
             | not fair to say that I must be wrong because I just don't
             | "get it".
        
               | te_chris wrote:
               | But you clearly don't get it, as your many posts in here
               | show.
               | 
               | Maori ideas of custodianship are wildly different: https:
               | //www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/2544-understanding...
        
             | ratsforhorses wrote:
             | I remember one Maori telling me "it's your house, but it
             | (all) our land..." which seems like a perfect antidote to
             | the capitalistic cancer of printing free money, giving it
             | to (unethical) corporations and letting them gobble up so
             | much space that we're homeless...ofc it doesn't quite work
             | that way either
        
           | mc32 wrote:
           | It's ridiculous but companies have made their bed by abusing
           | the collection of people's data and using that data
           | unscrupulously and insecurely. So, you know, I have little
           | sympathy here for the companies.
        
             | djrogers wrote:
             | Why are you bringing companies in to this? This is a
             | straight up racial restriction which affects individuals.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | hn_go_brrrrr wrote:
               | Because the most wide-scale abuse of people's data comes
               | from corporations, not individuals.
        
               | luckylion wrote:
               | A Maori corporation could "own" Maori data, as it would
               | be Maori, owned by Maori.
               | 
               | It's obviously a racial thing, not about companies.
        
               | mc32 wrote:
               | Of course this is shortsighted and also impractical but
               | it highlights the need for people to control their own
               | data. Whether it's this society referenced or another.
               | It's important that companies respect people's data.
        
       | kzrdude wrote:
       | They should reconsider publishing on github, because their ideas
       | clash pretty heavily with github's ideas of what they are
       | entitled to.
        
       | secondcoming wrote:
       | What is this? Is this an official government policy? How is a
       | publisher supposed to identify if someone is Maori?
        
         | lugged wrote:
         | I don't think it's official going by other commenters but as
         | background,
         | 
         | They're probably making the argument that their information is
         | mana (spirit~) and therefore tapu (sacred/don't touch).
         | 
         | I don't think many follow it but in traditional Maori culture
         | you're not even allowed to let someone get ahold of your cut
         | hair or nail clippings because they contain your mana and
         | someone could curse you if they get ahold of it.
         | 
         | https://teara.govt.nz/en/te-ao-marama-the-natural-world/page...
         | 
         | Edit:
         | 
         | More or less, yes
         | 
         | > 2.1 Context. All data has a whakapapa (genealogy) and a
         | mauri.
        
           | thaumasiotes wrote:
           | > They're probably making the argument that their information
           | is mana (spirit~) and therefore tapu (sacred/don't touch).
           | 
           | Usually spelled "taboo".
        
             | lugged wrote:
             | Tapu is a Maori word, it's a bit more nuanced / not quite
             | the same as taboo but close. It's not like nobody can
             | touch, just not everyone can touch. And not really about
             | touch at all but it's part of it.
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | It's close because it's the same word. But in English we
               | spell it "taboo". Would you say "colour is a British
               | word, it's not quite the same as color but it's close"?
        
               | mdoms wrote:
               | You need to stop, man. It's a different word.
        
               | edent wrote:
               | Maori is a completely separate language from English.
               | Although it uses the English alphabet with some accents.
               | 
               | The word tapu has completely different etymology than
               | taboo.
               | 
               | https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=0&phrase=0&pro
               | ver...
               | 
               | See also https://media.newzealand.com/en/story-
               | ideas/tapu-sacred-maor...
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | > The word tapu has completely different etymology than
               | taboo.
               | 
               | No, it doesn't. What do you think the etymology of taboo
               | is?
        
               | 1-more wrote:
               | They're part of the same language family, but pretty far
               | apart. The Lithuanian, Latin, and Saskrit words for fire
               | are ugnis, ignis, and agni. Are they the same word? Nah.
               | They just share an ancestor. Same thing with tapu and
               | taboo. They are for sure related but if we're gonna talk
               | about the Maori concept and not the English or Fijian one
               | we can signal that so easily by calling it tapu, not
               | taboo.
        
               | KittenInABox wrote:
               | It is apparently from Tongan or Fijian words, not Maori
               | words.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo#Etymology
               | 
               | I think it's weird to try and correct a person using the
               | accurate cultural terms with a mis-hearing of some
               | european in the 1700s. If anything "tapu" is the
               | technically correct term when referring to a concept in
               | the context of Maori culture specifically, and taboo is a
               | shitty mishearing of a foreigner of a different language.
               | 
               | Similar to say, if I was talking about java's methods. In
               | C# they're functions. But since I'm talking about Java,
               | and specifically Java's basic behavior, method is the
               | correct technical terminology to signify the context of
               | what I'm talking about. It'd be weird for a C# person to
               | show up, tell me that "actually, these are functions", if
               | I'm saying "in Java, X is called a method".
        
               | duskwuff wrote:
               | > It is apparently from Tongan or Fijian words, not Maori
               | words.
               | 
               | All of the Polynesian languages are closely related, to
               | the extent that many of them are mutually intelligible. A
               | simple shift in phonology, like /p/ to /b/, isn't enough
               | to render /tapu/ and /tabu/ different words. The
               | _connotations_ of those words may differ from one culture
               | to another, but the basic concept is the same.
        
               | KittenInABox wrote:
               | But it is true that the word "taboo" came from a
               | foreigner talking about Tongan peoples beliefs, which is
               | important when the topic we're trying to talk about is
               | Maori beliefs. Even if Maori and Tonga people are closely
               | related in culture, they are not the same culture and
               | Tonga people do not have the same co-sovereignity
               | agreements over New Zealand that Maori do.
        
               | djrobstep wrote:
               | OP is not writing an English word.
               | 
               | > Tapu is a Maori word
        
               | spoonjim wrote:
               | The English word "guru" is derived from the Sanskrit word
               | "guru" but their meanings couldn't be more different. In
               | English it's used to mean someone who's really good at
               | something, like a "digital marketing guru."
        
               | detaro wrote:
               | That the english word taboo is derived from it doesn't
               | make them "the same word", since we don't use it the same
               | way in English.
        
             | djrobstep wrote:
             | No, literally always spelt tapu, a different word with
             | completely different meaning and connotations than taboo.
        
               | AlanYx wrote:
               | The English word "taboo" actually comes from the
               | Polynesian family of languages (tapua/tupua/tapu), of
               | which Maori is a part.
        
               | mdoms wrote:
               | The 2021 Ford F-150 comes from the same historical family
               | as the Ford Pinto therefore they are the same car.
        
               | yorwba wrote:
               | The term has been reconstructed even further back to
               | Proto-Malayo-Polynesian and cognates exist across a large
               | number of related languages.
               | https://www.trussel2.com/acd/acd-s_t.htm#30099 Of course
               | that doesn't mean it's used the same in all of them.
        
               | djrobstep wrote:
               | That it has origins in the same language family doesn't
               | make it the same word. Once again - it has a very
               | different meaning to taboo.
        
         | Guthur wrote:
         | The last memo said all identity was fluid and pre defined
         | identities were social constructs of the oppressors, so one
         | must infer that one should say one identifies as Maori to be
         | Maori.
        
         | rgoulter wrote:
         | This part is where the author explains his views on current
         | government policy: https://www.taiuru.maori.nz/maori-data-
         | sovereignty-licences/...
        
         | intellirogue wrote:
         | It's just a proposal by an academic. Probably intended to spark
         | a conversation, as NZ is reviewing its privacy and data
         | sovereignty law.
        
       | totetsu wrote:
       | Oh god, this is entirely out of context for 99.999% of users of
       | this site. I don't see any productive conversation coming from
       | this..
       | 
       | All I can say.. is NZ is based on a partnership, between the
       | crown and Maori peoples. (setting asside bi-vs-multi-cultural-ism
       | for the moment) The idea that sovereignty was never given up by
       | Maori is a very important one. There is a lot of thought on
       | decolonialism recently. While whole world is subsumed by
       | machinations extreme free-market techno-capitalist and data
       | hording algorithm trainers, The Author of this article is
       | apparently thinking about this form within a Maori world view.
       | 
       | I can't really talk about it despite years of Highschool Tikanga
       | and Reo classes, ect.. I dont think it makes much sense out of
       | context..
        
         | SuoDuanDao wrote:
         | Animism is the new mindfulness?
        
         | rory wrote:
         | What is the target here? A lot of the points seem to address
         | personal data collection by companies or the government, but
         | they define Maori data very broadly as:
         | 
         | > _data, information or knowledge in any format or medium,
         | which is about, from, is produced by Maori Peoples_
         | 
         | Do they mean to include inventions? Code? Works of art?
        
         | postingawayonhn wrote:
         | > The idea that sovereignty was never given up by Maori is a
         | very important one. There is a lot of thought on decolonialism
         | recently.
         | 
         | These are still pretty fringe views in NZ.
         | 
         | There are some groups that support separate institutions and
         | legal systems for Maori but I wouldn't say that's anywhere near
         | a majority view.
        
           | te_chris wrote:
           | It's not fringe, it's the legal bedrock of NZ's constitution.
           | 
           | It's not about separate, it's about the crown entering into a
           | legal treaty then dishonouring it because lol Great Britain.
        
           | mdoms wrote:
           | Yes but unfortunately they are fringe ideas that our PM and
           | her cabinet appear to subscribe to - although they refuse to
           | explicitly say so.
        
             | te_chris wrote:
             | Ugh, it's quite literally the founding constitution and
             | basis for NZ. Describing mana whenua as 'Fringe' is racist
             | and insulting.
        
           | lostlogin wrote:
           | It isn't that fringe. Look at healthcare, where the abysmal
           | results delivered to Maori (see the below Hauora report) are
           | looking likely to result in a radical change in funding and
           | the establishment of The Maori Health Authority.
           | 
           | I work in health and am not Maori. Reading a little into
           | health disparities was a 'holy shit' moment for me. We do
           | very poorly.
           | 
           | https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/news/report-on-stage-one-
           | of...
           | 
           | https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/establishment-new-
           | maori-...
        
         | totetsu wrote:
         | on a side note I remember Richard stallman speaking at my
         | University about intellectual property abolishment, and
         | fielding a question about ownership rites of traditional Maori
         | knowledge, which he completely didn't get.
        
           | MichaelGroves wrote:
           | Maybe he didn't get it.. or maybe you didn't like his answer?
        
       | echelon wrote:
       | > This article introduces six new licence to protect Maori Data
       | and recognise Maori Data Sovereignty rights today and for the
       | next 1000 years.
       | 
       | I'd be willing to bet everything I have and will ever own that
       | there won't be humans as the predominant form of intelligence in
       | 1,000 years.
       | 
       | We'll either kill ourselves (or destroy civilization irreparably
       | such that this doesn't matter), introduce AGI that outperforms
       | and outlives us, or evolve our bodies into something better and
       | longer lasting (brain uploads, etc.)
        
         | xook wrote:
         | The other possibility, though remote, is we find ourselves at
         | the mercy of some form of advanced extraterrestrial life. What
         | ever should come after is anyone's guess, but it would mean we
         | would be of lesser intelligence in the universe by comparison.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-08-25 23:03 UTC)