Slashdot Mirror
Aboriginal Archive Uses New DRM
ianare writes "An application that gives fresh new meaning to 'digital rights management' has been pioneered by Aboriginal Australians. It relies on a user's profile to control access to a multimedia archive. The need to create profiles based on a user's name, age, sex and standing within their community comes from traditions over what can and cannot be viewed. For example, men cannot view women's rituals, and people from one community cannot view material from another without first seeking permission. Images of the deceased cannot be viewed by their families. These requirements threw up issues surrounding how the material could be archived, as it was not only about preserving the information into a database in a traditional sense, but also about how people would access it depending on their gender, their relationship to other people, and where they were situated."
If TFA (which went 'splat' on me when I tried to reach it) is implying that the files need DRM to solve what is essentially an administration problem (user & group permissions), then something's fscked. Otherwise, methinks the summary is more than just a little misleading, no?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
This doesn't sound like DRM. It sounds like access control.
So this is simply a website with user management. Not everybody is allowed to see everything. This is different from DRM as Microsoft advocates it, where people would not be able to save these pages and images unencrypted onto their machines. Because, you know, they might mail them to somebody of the opposite sex!
It's highly unlikely that this website really relies on complicated DRM schemes (which would require Vista).
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
It seems obvious that people could just register fake accounts with different details just to access info their real profile won't give them access to.
It's cultural! Try not to be insensitive.
That was my reaction, but they call it a "website that's not online". However, from the sounds of it, the users probably don't own the computers, so I would still call it access control.
If it is DRM, itt appears to have a major advantage of most systems: the users want it to enforce its rules.
The Aboriginal Tribes would not use such technology if it violated their deep-rooted traditions, and furthermore would see it as 'evil'. So for them to adopt new technology, they must not be offended by it.
I've read TFA. It seems to me that this is just the result of the very will of those people to respect their own traditions and that this whole thing was made only after it had turned up that they would not accept the archive as easily without provisions for preventing potential embarassment. They seem to be doing it willingly. I'm not sure it's about superstition, it's just about social habits. You think it's silly? Fine, you have the right to have an opinion, but I'd say it's their business. And I don't feel there's a harm, unless TFA is grossly inaccurate, concerning the situation there.
Ezekiel 23:20
Before complaining about DRM, RTFA and spend a bit of time thinking why this was done. The culture in question has a complicated set of rules about who can and cannot see certain images, rituals, etc. The anthropologist wanted to show them to the larger world without violating the rules of the culture that produced them. But wasn't the only reason: the restrictions also allows you the visitor to better understand the culture. Why? You might think that the best way to experience that culture to be shown all of it at once, but you should consider that men who live in this culture never get to see certain things. Think of it as a simulation of a culture. Use it to reflect on the assumptions you make about who is entitled to what information.
Now instead of getting random users to see goatse, users will be trying to get specific people to view a pic of their now-dead grandma hosted on flickr.
Most of the traditions we have in a non-network-connected world were created and exist because of barriers that now have much less meaning. While I commend them for holding their traditions, it seems a bit misplaced.
First off, people online are going to make friends and connections based on personalities and interests, not physical proximity to their tribal members - very quickly people will be trading accounts and passing information around outside the system. Worse, putting such complex access restrictions in place make it a tempting target for insiders to divulge secrets or for other data breaches and access attacks.
So, assuming you have an S/O, you wouldn't mind if there were YouTube videos of you doing the linen fandango with him/her? For that matter, why do you even bother to wear clothing outdoors when the temperature is warm?
Sounds unrelated, but it isn't once you dig deeper...
See, there are, at base, some things which any given existing culture likes to keep secret. Sometimes it's simple stuff like sex, sometimes it's complex stuff like not viewing your deceased relatives for fear that their ghost will come in the night and tear up your house.
Just because someone holds the beliefs that they shouldn't view the rituals of the opposite gender, or that they shouldn't eyeball videos of "hot cheating amateur couples!" on a website, doesn't mean they're supposed to go all Aboriginal or Amish in their lifestyle. And just because you think it's silly doesn't mean that they cannot and/or shouldn't self-censor as individuals or as a community. Odds are very good that this Aboriginal resource DB was rigged by request from the community itself, so why the hullabaloo?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Given your comment, I'm wondering...
Can't they respect their own traditions without imposing technologically enforced access controls? What do they do when someone uses hard-copy information, or, to take an example from the article, a man viewing woman's rituals?
What is the point of building an access control system like this?
-- Terry
Alright troll, I'll bite.
/. because it constitutes a complex and useful method of regulating user access to the archive based on the users characteristics.
You're kidding, right? The material concerned was created by the Aboriginal people, is chiefly of concern to them, and in no way impacts on anyone who doesn't use the service. WhoTF do you think you are to tell them that what they hold sacred is "superstition mumbo-jumba", or that "the days of secret ceremonies are coming to and end"!?
This is news on
resist. unlearn. defy.
A file that can be viewed by your friend can be emailed to you. Simple userland permissions is trying to replicate.
DRM will only let the person whose profile is signed in view the image, whether it's emailed or whatever. It's a very different thing.
really, the days of secret ceremonies are coming to and end.
On whose say so? The geek's?
There are times when I think that the geek is the last of the imperialists. Believing that every cultural barrier must fall to his "white man's" notion of perfection.
Thats nothing.
There are cultures wherein if someone dies then you arn't allowed to use their name anymore.
Not only that, but you arn't allowed to use words that *sound* like their name.
Such cultures have languages in which the lexicon changes very rapidly as people introduce new words all the time to replace sound-alikes.
Sometimes its not hard to see why languages and traditions become extinct as people realise that they don't really *have* to maintain this kind of rubbish (yes call me insensitive. But realistic).
"Oh noes, Mr. Tellingbone died! Have to come up with a new word for 'telephone'!!! Ooops Mrs Hemboyga died! Have to come up with a new word for 'hamburger'!!!"
This kind of thing just doesn't scale well beyond populations of a few hundred.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I always go into the Dreamtime and become a female Roo when I want to access information about female rituals.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Except in this case, it's more like the "pasty man's" notion of perfection.
Archivists typically have to respect the rules of the communities they serve regarding access to materials. Sometimes that means, say, putting a bunch of somebody's steamy love letters under lock and key until all of the named parties have died off. Other times it means managing intellectual property rights. And sometimes you run into cases like this one, where the cultural rules regarding the material are more involved.
I still think my favorite example was a living history project - the researchers involved had been recording traditional stories. One of them was an explanatory myth about why it snows. The problem was that there was a strong tradition requiring that the story be told only when there is snow on the ground. There's a doozy of an access control problem, unless you take the cheap way out and declare that there is always snow on the ground somewhere.
http://www.peppermintgrove.org/wesley/
Learn what Aboriginals are really like. No, I'm not racist. I'm a realist.
These kinds of taboos against men and women seeing one another, against talking about the dead, etc. are very common in the aboriginal cultures of Australia, and they take them very seriously. The Warlpiri language, for example, has a sort of sub-language called the avoidance register, used when people of certain familial relations need to talk to each other (a woman and son-in-law, for example) - the grammar's mostly the same, but the words are dramatically simplified, and often replaced with generic terms. And such phenomena occur in other cultural/language groups too - I believe there's something like it in Zulu.
It seems odd to you, but it's also how they want to live. They're free to leave where they live (and many do), and those that stay want to live the traditional way.
Odds are very good that this Aboriginal resource DB was rigged by request from the community itself, so why the hullabaloo?
Jingoism and bigotry posing as rational smug superiority. Nothing more.
The enemies of Democracy are
links to a malicious site
really, the days of secret ceremonies are coming to and end.
Evidently not! Seems like some cultures just don't want to be assimilated.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
When I said traditional way, I didn't mean in terms of the technology they live with, but in terms of the traditional ways in which people interact - culture. And I believe it was perfectly clean from what I wrote that's what I meant.
Apparently you're an idiot, though.
Cultures should by immune to mockery?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
This was mentioned weeks ago on Wendy's Legal Blog ( i have it on RSS feed ), she actually had a talk to the creator of the site. http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2008/01/11/mukurtu-contextual-archiving-digital-restrictions-done-right.html
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
There's one important distinction here.
There is a huge difference between "secret" and "private". What you do when you're sitting on the toilet or between the sheets with your SO is no secret, but it is private.
But the other important distinction here is that the Aboriginal database is consensual, much like flagging "inappropriate content". It's to protect you from accidentally seeing something that you don't want to see, not to prevent you from seeing something that you're not allowed to. I have no problem with that at all.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Honestly, I can't believe this response. There are cultures around the world who thing marrying girls as young as 12 is perfectly acceptable, and probably think we have a ridiculous taboo. Before you start accusing aboriginals of having ridiculous customs, look hard at your own, and don't be so arrogant.
"Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
This isn't flamebait, merely an expression of one man's frustration from having to deal with the pathetic primitives that can't accept the fact that the world has evolved past the sillier forms of supernaturalism.
I'd use the term "holier than thou" to describe your attitude, but I fear that the phrase alludes to what you likely term as superstition. On the other hand, "STFU you intolerant, elitist, arrogant asshead", while certainly applicable, just seems a bit too harsh.
A bit of a quandary, really...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It is flamebait, unless you can tell us what "frustration from having to deal with the pathetic primitives" you've personally experienced, and as a bonus, what makes you so fisking superior.
"Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
More controls on something not nearly so interesting or lucrative that the artists can afford to do it.
It'll only make people like myself care less about Aboriginal art (if that's possible). If not for the historical significance I'd already have zero appreciate or care about it.
Way to go promoting your culture.
as long as you can take mockery yourself
"Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
anything but primitive. Often westerners (including me) upon seeing these people just see someone who lives a primitive and alien lifestyle. Over the years my whole view of the environment and our relationship with the land and each other has been completely been revised thanks to the knowledge gained gained from these true Australians. When western settlers first visited Australia all they saw were trees and bushes and no agriculture. The reality is far different in fact the Aborigines have for thousands of years been cultivating the land, food is everywhere but a westerner would starve unless shown the food they were standing on. Using fire management and spreading seeds (selection) Australian aborigines created a traveling smorgasboard that spanned thousands of miles. To have such a complex agricultural system (that puts western agricultural methods to shame in an environmental comparison) one must also have a very complex social system based on respect not just for the living but the dead. Many of you who eat your plastic food and live your broken sitcom social lives will sit back and laugh at such a people but the reality is they are laughing at us but are to honorable to tell us. If your after more info go watch a documentary series called "The Bush Tucker Man", well worth watching and a real eye opener.
This isn't flamebait, merely an expression of one man's frustration from having to deal with the pathetic primitives that can't accept the fact that the world has evolved past the sillier forms of supernaturalism.
The world?
Outside of the USA which is rife with that form of silly supernaturalism called 'christianity', of course.
You were referring mainly to Europe?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
On the surface, that sounds correct... but it's a subtlety at best, IMHO. Someone wanting to keep their sex life away from the public at large is really no different than someone wanting to keep their religious (or other) rituals from being viewed by folks who probably don't want to see or know about it (like parents keeping their nocturnal activities away from the kids, or not really wanting to know that grandma and grandpa still get jiggy on occasion). The motivations are the same - be it a naked couple having sex or a group of women praying for fertility (or whatever it may be). Privacy (at least IMHO) involves keeping things secure from exploitation by others (e.g. credit card info, health records, etc). Secrecy OTOH? Well, it's likely no secret at all that Joe and Jane Sixpack have sex if they have kids. OTOH, the rituals they made to get to that point (positions, foreplay, things shouted during the act, scratches involved, etc) may be (to them) the equivalent of a secret ritual (or not... maybe Joe likes to brag at the locker room?)
But the other important distinction here is that the Aboriginal database is consensual, much like flagging "inappropriate content". It's to protect you from accidentally seeing something that you don't want to see, not to prevent you from seeing something that you're not allowed to. I have no problem with that at all.I've no problems with it either, and believe it or not I do agree with the distinction, though I'm fairly sure that the practitioners of these female rites are just as eager to not have them seen as the men are to not see them, no?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Let's invade an enemy country, kidnap some virgins, and sacrifice them to the Sky God, okay?! After we're done and we've been arrested by The White Man, we can scream "racism" and blame the American hegemony! "STFU you intolerant, elitist, arrogant asshead" I'd consider that a compliment, actually. Thanks.
The last thing the primitives need is to have their dead/dying culture kept alive on life support.
The young need textbooks, not textiles.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
How civilized, how enlightened you are! Please explain to us why we should follow your wittily expressed contempt.
This isn't flamebait, merely an expression of one man's frustration from having to deal with the pathetic primitives that can't accept the fact that the world has evolved past the sillier forms of supernaturalism.That which to us seems perfectly obvious will some day be revealed as silly superstition.
Damn those pesky terrorists
"Jingoism and bigotry posing as rational smug superiority. Nothing more."
I'd say ignorance even.
The reason why this is important, is due to the critical need for anthropologists to win the trust of many of these ancient tribes to study the practices so we can learn a bit more about how hunter gatherer societies organise. Back in the earlier days of Anthropologists studying Aboriginal tribes, the Aboriginals, knowing "whitefulla" had no real ability to use the dances and rituals in the "magical" way Aboriginal religions see them, they freely cooperated and would show the rituals etc. However a series of incidents, where the rituals where shown on TV and then seen by neighboring tribes, thus unleashing "curses" or whatever, led to most of these tribes stopping from trusting anthropologists to respect the conditions of the cooperation. This particularly occurs with gender specific rituals. "womens business" rituals are not to be seen by men (white men included), and unless the anthropologist can guarantee this, she won't be shown the ritual. But oftentimes she cant, and so anthropology never gets to study it.
Systems like this, where the community gets to decide the 'rules' of accessing the multimedia (a bit like creative commons even) means that the Anthropologist can finally win the trust of the tribe to do the studies needed to piece together the mysteries of traditional Aboriginal life.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
Dead-grandma goatse!
Actually I wouldn't mind, but my point is all secrets will be available to anyone.
"For that matter, why do you even bother to wear clothing outdoors when the temperature is warm?"
Becasue I'll get arrested. I should be able to walk out of my house naked, but people stuck with beliefs that should have been left behind with the middle ages have made it taboo.
And I do understand they are related.
"some things which any given existing culture likes to keep secret."
Yes, but as long as you have the means for that information to become public, it will. I can see people having sex any time with a few clicks of a button. No amount of cultural norm can prevent that.
"And just because you think it's silly doesn't mean that they cannot and/or shouldn't self-censor as individuals or as a community."
I didn't say the couldn't or shouldn't, only that they are putting restrictions on something that, by it's nature, doesn't like these types limitations.
" so why the hullabaloo?"
The only reason there is a hullabaloo is because of a bunch of over reactions by slashdotters.
Mostly I see a bunch of humans being hamstrung by superstition and it is frustrating.How many brilliant Physicists, engineers, geologists have never seen the light of day because there trapped within a society of mumbo-jumbo. Since they are raised that way, they really don't have a choice.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If it is simply a website with user management, and no actual DRM, then, well...
Think about every non-DRM'd song you've ever bought...
Yep. Case in point. People who have bought that song have access to it. People who haven't, don't. Access control -- but it's un-DRM'd.
However, complicated DRM schemes do not require Vista.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I think the most awkward aspect of this is that they need some outsider to code the database and DRM. And this guy gets to see everything and according to their tradition most probably this guy should not be getting to view all of it in the first place anyway. Hopefully, one day all individuals will learn enough about computers to upload their own material and then set DRM as they wish.
No, because Europe - Britain, at least - will be Islamic within a few generations. Have fun with Sharia, because it's a helluva lot worse than anything the Christian crazies could ever dream of.
For one thing, I'm not in Europe but it was hard to imagine where on earth was being suggested by the OP. Not east asia, certainly not middle east nor south america...
For another, I've known a lot of christians and I doubt strongly that sharia would necessarily be any worse than what 'christian crazies' could dream up. Believe me, they can dream pretty scary.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
It really puts faith in the moderation system that that got an insightful mod...
You are retarded? Western and/or American society is full of cultural superstitions that most people follow without knowing. I just love how slashdot's reader get all agitated about some harmless BS like this.. Get over it, every culture has it's stupid shit, as long as it doesn't harm anyone (and this ACL system is 100% voluntary), there is no issue.
Some harmful aspects of American and/or Western culture:
Christianity's crusade against sexuality:
-A photo of a nude person is considered pornography and harmful to minors (even if it isn't explicitly suggestive)
-Walking naked in warm weather can get you labeled as a sex offender
-Prosecution of minors who decided that they want to have sex
-Enforcing moral regulation on private infrastructure (I still don't understand how the Christians get away with enforcing what can be shown on cable, isn't it a private infrastructure and don't you have to specifically opt-in for cable?)
-Limiting sexual minorities from establishing civil unions, let alone engaging in marriage. Did you know something like 30+ state constitutions have an explicit ban on civil unions?
-Sex before marriage is wrong, WTF?
Christianity's crusade against drugs
-LSD/Mushrooms/Weed are considered more harmful than coke/amphetamine (most psychedelics tend be very non-addictive both in terms of physical and mental dependency)
-Alcohol is okay even though it directly kill thousands of people every year. Guess how many people die from weed every year?
Christianity's crusade against progress
-Even though science and religion are mutually exclusive concepts that are in no way related, Christians are shallow enough to view evolution as a threat to their existence.
-What's the deal with stem cells? I know most hardcore Christians are pretty uneducated, but why is a small retarded minority allowed to get involved into scientific research? They should just sign a pledge that they will not be able to use any direct/indirect benefits that arise from stem cell research
Christianity's crusade against life
-A person's life is his own, if he sees no point in existence, it is his right to commit suicide. It is not important what Christianity says.
-Opposition to euthanasia, WTF?
-The "40 million killed babies" myth. Anyone who talks about abortion and the lost generation and BS like that doesn't give a flying fuck about the children. If they would, they would be helping kids who need help NOW, not sucking Christian cock for power/influence/support.
And don't get me started on all the 'free market' bias.
P.S. I have nothing against the free market, I think it should be used whenever possible. That does not mean you should be able to pollute all you want. Pay for any consequences that arise from your pollution, this should include long term consequences.
Precisely, this is why some TV programs over here warn aboriginal and torres straight islanders that "this program may contain images of deceased persons".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This brings up a couple of interesting questions for me:
-
Firstly, is putting this archive online the best way to preserve this information for the cultural group involved? Eventually information held in websites leaks out, there is no way to protect it forever.
-
Secondly, the privacy of this information has already been broken obviously. Anthropologists by their very nature come and take the information about how your cultural system works and then disseminate it as they see fit. To some extend the happy slide-night has probably already caused the damage.
If these people really want to keep their information private, then putting it online is a mistake in the first place.(FWIW I've worked with Aboriginal communities).
Regarding the term DRM, it does not really apply to this in the sense of embedding permissions within a file, and only allowing 'approved' devices for opening (i.e. music DRM like aacs/wma). It is an access permissions system using PHP/MySQL, similar to many others in use on the web or internally. However I felt the application was novel and interesting enough to warrant discussion, and as BBC used the term DRM kept I it as well (also this is
info from here: Technical Specifications
Environment
MySQL server and PHP scripting language on a Web server (Apache, e.g.)
Platform
All supported (XP, OS X, etc). Note, CD Burning from the browser requires OS X and certain file permissions.
Examples
The archive runs locally on an iMac in a MAMP package (Mac OSX, Apache, MySQL, PHP), or on a Windows PC running XAMPP.
The package will also run in core Web server environments.
It's something that comes up a lot in computer science. Stuff that's "private" in a module/class/whatever is not for clients to access. But it's usually no "secret"; you wouldn't cryptographically protect it, for example.
Absolutely. Just like I'm pretty eager not to see most of my friends have sex, and I'm sure they feel the same way about me.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Look, you're singing to the choir. We can't even get rid of the sillier forms of supernaturalism, you think we have a chance against Christianity?
We've got to start somewhere - might as well be with the fringe, "native" religions.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
I think the point you are missing is that these fringe 'native' religions are far better than Christianity. Rarely do such fringe religions have sufficient power to bother anyone or limit their rights. The most they can do is engage in this kind of silly stuff.
There is no point bothering with this silly stuff when we have millions of rabid Christian trying to enforce their so called 'morality' on us.
Seriously, this whole ACL system seems to be about as effective as those age checker than ask you for your age before letting you use the resource. It doesn't bother anyone, if people have some weird beliefs it's not an issue as long as they don't impact other people.
Sure, it's not completely fair to judge the validity of beliefs if we're not Aboriginal or have much knowledge of them, mind you, that doesn't stop most Slashdotters from bagging out Christianity despite not knowing shit about it beyond some rhetoric about spaghetti monsters and abortion clinics being blown up. Hell, I've even read someone on slashdot being modded to +5 for blaming the holocaust on Christianity even though the Nazis killed Dietrich Bonhoeffer, chased out Karl Barth and kept the young John Paul II in hiding. The upper Nazi echelon was trying to bring back the Germanic gods/rituals to combat the Jewish origins of Christianity, but still on Slashdot you can tie Christianity to this genocide and nobody will bat an eyelid. Scientology is a constant target of ridicule of course because it was made up by some dude to make money. However Scientology is now exclusively the domain of people who really believe in it (including that nutter Miscavage) but we have no problems with laughing at those people simply because we know how the religion was founded. Now a bunch of people are bursting to trot out the old party line "information wants to be free" applied to these Aboriginal beliefs and suddenly there is the call to let them be.
Totally invalid comparison. Sexual congress is widely understood and documented, you can pick up a book on sexual tips and tricks with all the information you need from a book store. Likewise with the human body, there are anatomical textbooks showing what you're body looks like inside and out. This is about certain knowledge that in aboriginal culture is completely occluded from certain members of society which does not have a parallel in western society. That doesn't make it either wrong or right.
Personally, I don't have a problem with this system, but I also don't have a problem with certain churches not allowing female ministers, Jews and Muslims mutilating their sons' wangs and other stuff that isn't ever going to affect me. If you do care about equality and freedom of information in these societies I don't see why you shouldn't get a chance to whine about it on slashdot.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Would this be compairable to putting DRM on porn to keep youngsters out of places they shouldn't be? I mean, both acts of restriction would be based off of social beliefs and ethics. The only difference is what they are doing is a lot more elaborite.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
The company I work for developed a web based knowledge repository like this back in 2001 for Galiwinku in the Northern Territory. Unfortunately the project derailed, I'm not sure why (being only a lowly developer and all), but was probably due to funding reconsiderations or somesuch. We had a working system which covered the different groups, sexes, groups within the sexes, age, location, and a few other things I can't recall now and can't check back up on because the development site is all written in the Yolgnu language. It was an amazing amount of data to work with though, and one thing I didnt see mentioned yet, is that it isn't JUST about limiting who has access to what, it also defines what aspect you are presented with regarding a given item - eg: a given plant may have one story attached to it in relation to a women's group from wherever, but a totally different one for male elders elsewhere. So it's not just about keeping people out, it's as much to ensure individuals receive the right information for their affiliations complex as they may be. Most painful access level components I've ever worked on.. ever..
Interesting, got any examples of such a culture?
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Have you never encountered a single sex school, either? They're restricted on traditional, but silly grounds. Educational institutes exist that bar my entry based on gender, I fail to see how this is different, except that it comes from a culture that you aren't totally immersed in, so you can see the seemingly silly restrictions. I promise you that when it's boiling hot, and you're going to work in a suit and tie, your cultural norms look fucking ridiculous to any Aboriginal still living a traditional life.
> unless TFA is grossly inaccurate, concerning the situation there.
In fact, the article simplifies the situation, which is actually much more complex.
In that case, of course, no one ever claimed that Jews in New York were a poor sub-stratum. Given the problems confronted by the [insert PC word here] communities in Australia, however, if technology and funding is used for museum keeping, that seems decadent when the life expectancy is tens of years below the mean, alcoholism is rife and unemployment is sky-high. Let me guess: money from the tribes is being spent by white developers to produce an artefact for a museum mostly visited by whites.
ian
I think we should be highly critical of Aboriginal cultural norms, morals, taboos and mores. There is no need for all this defensiveness, trying to protect Aboriginal traditions. The key point that I make though is that this applies to every culture, including our own, we need to be critical of all of them. My Western culture often insists that men should wear ties and hot suits during summer, that public nudity is an outrage and many many other very other questionable ideas.
Much of our tradition, culture and norms have simply been uncritically and unconsciously inherited by us. Is this an intelligent manner by which to derive ways by which to live our collective lives? Do we not value analysis, examination, reasoning and questioning? Are they not likely to help us to create better systems which are more suited to human nature, potential and fulfillment in general?
It's a lot easier to see what may be inherited superstition and idiocy in other cultures, simply because we have not bee exposed to them from birth. For example I have little doubt that female circumcision is, when taken as a whole, overall inherently negative as regards human beings and their general nature. So I say abolish it.
We need to examine out cultures and traditions and norms, we need to put them under the microscope and decide if they really are worthwhile, and in this way we can intelligently and consciously shape the systems we live by, so that they may best fit the human species.The alternative is to continue to try to shoehorn us all into ill-fitting poorly designed systems inherited from an often ignorant past.
I think we should be highly critical of cultural norms, morals, taboos and mores. There is no need for all this defensiveness, trying to protect Aboriginal traditions. The key point that I make though is that this applies to every culture, including our own, we need to be critical of all of them. My Western culture often insists that men should wear ties and hot suits during summer, that public nudity is an outrage and many many other very other questionable ideas.
Much of our tradition, culture and norms have simply been uncritically and unconsciously inherited by us. Is this an intelligent manner by which to derive ways by which to live our collective lives? Do we not value analysis, examination, reasoning and questioning? Are they not likely to help us to create better systems which are more suited to human nature, potential and fulfillment in general?
It's a lot easier to see what may be inherited superstition and idiocy in other cultures, simply because we have not bee exposed to them from birth. For example I have little doubt that female circumcision is, when taken as a whole, overall inherently negative as regards human beings and their general nature. So I say abolish it.
We need to examine out cultures and traditions and norms, we need to put them under the microscope and decide if they really are worthwhile, and in this way we can intelligently and consciously shape the systems we live by, so that they may best fit the human species, instead of trying to shoehorn us all into ill-fitting poorly designed systems inhereted from an often ignorant past.
Maybe the conceit lies in the assumption that we should study them like animals, rather than interact with them like neighbors.
You don't go to your neighbor's house and ask to observe or join in their supper so you can learn about their cooking and dining techniques to compare to your own. You invite your neighbors over for dinner. And they might invite you over as well, but a polite host doesn't expect it.
Who cares if this stuff is lost to the ages. If THEY want to document it, they're free to. Nobody is stopping them from sending member to university for anthropology and doing the studies themselves. Nobody but money, that is, so someone should offer to sponsor a few.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Well, we do have a ridiculous taboo, which I can see without being from another culture. Girls should now wait a decade or so after puberty before they make a family, because otherwise they won't have an opportunity to get educated and be independent. However, in an illiterate peasant society where most men will be farmers or tradesmen, and most women will be creating and caring for children, it makes no sense for the pairing off of male and female individuals to be artificially delayed.
Seeing undelayed marriage as immoral or repugnant is about as logical as feeling the same way about foreign food.
I think what we're really missing here is that Australian aboriginals have strict and complex kinship systems, their rituals are often secret, and they still have this scar from anthropologists exposing their secrets.
So this system works for them. It may look stupid to a westerner (TM) since usually when we do stuff like "women can't do X, men can't do Y" we're just discriminating. This in to exactly the case here, as it's more to do with secret rituals you're not supposed to know.
Do I like it? Not really. Still, it works for them.
(By the way, I may be a bit wrong, but you get the point)
o hai
In Maasai culture, it is avoided to talk about the deceased. When you visit someone after a long time, you'd sit down and drink tea, and the conversation will go "Little Timmy is growing up fast." "My brother is doing well." "Mom's been a little ill lately but she got better." etc. - after a while of these exchanges, the well-being of the whole extended family is covered. You are _not_ supposed to go "Wait, you didn't mention your grandmother, how is she?" If she's not mentioned during this "protocol", she's dead. Don't talk about her.
"You don't go to your neighbor's house and ask to observe or join in their supper so you can learn about their cooking and dining techniques to compare to your own."
Yes we do. What about all the cooking programs on TV? You picked bad example.
How the aboriginies lived gives us an idea of how we lived when we were under similar conditions. We study our own culture in the same way to understand what we may be doing in the future as well as what we are doing now (and is it a good idea).
"primitive" cultures are often given more appreciation than they deserved. Aboriginal australians created the desert and killed off most of the animals. American indinans ran herds of buffalo off cliffs and ate just the liver and other choice bits because there was so much meat to eat (and probably saw off the mastodons, too). They lived in harmony with nature only when their ability to exploit the natural world meant there wasn't enough left to waste and exploit.
And we probably did too (Scotland used to be trees from horizon to horizon until humans took them down and now scotland can't afford trees on their thin soil. And we're still doing it.
So this is a control system much like a lot of content on then Internet that can only be viewed by a select group or subscriber? Or the education system/club where one must met certain requirements before one is allowed in? Maybe even the corporate sector holding onto their IP rights after all many of these rituals are live giving much like pharmaceuticals or doctoring..
No one elected some anthropologist and gave him/her the Godlike power to decide which aspects of Aboriginal culture are rigidly enforced. Culture is a dynamic process. It should not be fossilized with rigidly enforced rules about what is and is not permissible. Are Aboriginals not to be allowed to dissent? To be non-conformist? This kind of DRM/censorship should be thrown on the scrapheap with all the rest. It disenfranchises the ordinary people and puts their welfare into the hands of some supposedly benign protector. Total bullshit! Of course the Aboriginal elders support this - they are conservatives and resist change - what about the rising new generation? I worked with Aboriginal people in the 90's in central Australia - its about time this kind of paternalist crap was consigned to the trash...
When he came back for a visit, many years later, he revealed that he had never taken out Australian citizenship. When we asked why he explained something on the lines of "Australians are wonderful people, but the country is run by a load of white complete bastards who treat them like shit, and I refuse to vote for them."
The other replies to the parent have many misconceptions. First, it wasn't the First Australians who grew the population beyond what a hunter gatherer lifestyle could maintain. Second, what makes you think that the First Australians were particularly poor before the white man came? There is considerable anthropological evidence that, until the invention of modern sewage systems, starting in the mid-19th century, many hunter gatherers were on average taller, stronger and longer lived than Western city dwellers. It is wrong, unfair, and shows lack of historical perspective to compare their standard of living now with the standard of living of white Australians now.
If people want to hold on to their traditional societies, despite oppression, that should tell us something about our modern society that perhaps some of us don't want to hear.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
*Sigh* yer a fricken' troll. You don't have to be a prophet to see that, just over 14 years old. By definition, we don't know what things we're idiots about yet, though life is being debunked daily. The process hasn't stopped, for some of us, anyway. You write like the arrogant juvie who has it all figured out.
Many things labelled "morals" will change, things like the 'traditional' family (a recent invention) for instance. Here's a guess at a few things that we'll think are silly in the future: the description of time and space; our pervasive use of plastics; the process of constructing belief; our political beliefs; economics; aliens/not aliens; cartesian mindset; colonial sense of superiority. The ethics of the Settler State. Disavowance of collective responsibility for genocide. The notion that one language is good enough. Swimming after lunch will give you cramps. Etc.
The older I grow
the more I recall
how little I knew
when I knew it all.
Damn those pesky terrorists
It's not a bad example. The cooking shows invite you in to watch.
The question is not whether or not the information would be useful. Undoubtedly, it would be. The question is whether we have the right to demand its recording. And I would say, no, and especially not under false pretenses. The proper way to go about it is to invite our neighbors to review our research into our own culture, and try to impress upon them the benefits of a permanent record. Then, if they decide to record themselves or invite others to do the recording, the critical issue is who does the inviting.
I would gladly sacrifice knowledge of a culture in order to treat its people like human beings.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Do Not Taunt happy slide night? What's a happy slide-night?
butt sweat
It was from my days of studying linguistics, a long time ago. If I recall correctly it was not uncommon in Melanesia for words to get dropped if they sounded like names of people who died. I could be mistaken though.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
My culture, unlike all others, is perfect and contains nothing mock-worthy. But I no longer have time to discuss this on Slashdot, as I need to go to Wal-Mart to get some beer and ammunition for this weekend's gator hunt.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
There is no difference between this so-called 'DRM' and the privacy options in Facebook, where I can choose who can and can't view my own personal 'rituals' with some pretty fine granularity, likely to get even finer as time progresses -- in fact it looks like aboriginals have one-upped Facebook and pushed the envelope -- I'm feeling envious.
Oh hi, it is you again... you seem to be a real expert on DRM and the DMCA and the world wide versions of such.
You confidently corrected me earlier, stating that Canada had a DMCA like law. Now I know Canada is very much under attack by us(the USA), but I am still waiting to hear what this law is... I don't think Canada knows it exists. Maybe WE passed a law that made it illegal for them to rip movies?
As I replied earlier
'I am waiting excitedly to hear from you explaining the "DMCA like" law that Canada has adopted.
Anyway, I still stand by my assertion "most people on the world live outside the US, and for most of those it is LEGAL to rip a movie".
Even if we assume(pretend?) that Canada and the EU were under a DMCA, most of the people in the world would still be unaffected. The west has very little population.'
Most of Australia, as a matter of fact. But generally taboo words and names cease to be bound by 'curse' a couple of years after the person's death. They don't arbitrarily make up names and words to fill the spaces left by words bound by curse either. Usually there's a dummy word or name that is shorthand for 'this name is taboo at the moment'. In cultures of only a couple of hundred people, the context is generally enough to inform the listener who/what is being referred to. Besides, actual given names aren't all that useful. More often than not, one's skin name would be used to identify someone, and skin names can continue to be used after a death. For instance, if a ngapangardi woman dies, someone who is classified as her brother might speak about her and say 'my sister...', or someone may refer to her using 'that ngapangardi...'. Only her actual name is off limits.
This sort of thing is very common in Australia and respecting it, and all the other cultural mores, with continually evolving technological standards is difficult, but with brilliant projects such as the Mukurtu archive, communities are slowly beginning to manage it themselves.