e-subversion's declaration

To subvert in English means to undermine the power and authority of an established system or institution. It comes from Latin words „sub-” - from below and „vertere” - to turn (thank you Oxford, for your online dictionaries!). However between the IT folk „Subversion” is also a name of an open source version control software which is commonly used for collaborative programming (to which I'm not linked in any way, except maybe by the relation a fan-boy can have to one of it's heroes ;-) ). Both meanings were equally important for me, when I had chosen e-subversion to be my domain, because they underline the message I want to give to everyone who enters this page – the world has changed toward collaborative work of communities, but since politics tends to lag behind attached to its' XIX century constrains, we need a revolutionary change which brings us again on the same page (call it Politics 2.0 if you need a nice catchy word).

In Poland, when I came from (great country BTW – you should definitely visit it!) people discuss if voting districts should be bigger or smaller (one person elected vs. many), they argue if by counting of votes we should use d’Hondt's method or the Sainte-Laguë's one, but only few of them realize that the changes we really need should go much deeper. The current system has been established in times in which most of the people didn't move more than 20 kilometres from the place they lived and they needed to elect a representative, who would pack its' bags and make a 2 week journey to the parliament to defend local interest. So here is the news for some pricks who missed last 20 years – the world got smaller and interests got global. The travel from the farthest place to Polish parliament is just few hours away now. What's more important – you don't even need to travel now, because we have internet. Technical constrains had changed, so why are we still doing the things the way our grandfathers did. Nothing against our grandfathers BTW...nor grandmothers (their recipes in cooking are the best in the world).

It's time to think why oh why do we need representatives (460 in case of Poland plus 100 in Polish Senate), if technically it is possible to everyone to vote by itself on any subject. Why should we renounce our right to decide independently? Why third readings of changes to amendments of laws, if we have CVS programs (Concurrent Versions System) and even their heirs like already mentioned Subversion, if we have wikis of different types, contents created and managed jointly by internet communities, where everyone can participate. There is a lot of buzz about Web 2.0 and social communities in internet, but nobody (except me :-) ) is proposing to use the same in a democratic process.

This page is my call for systematic change, which would allow democracy to be more direct, participative and less representative. D’Hondt which introduced one of the vote counting systems died in 1901 and it's time for the current political system to do the same. It's time for politics to say „hello” at least to XX century inventions and it's time to show to politicians what all this internet is about, how to use CVS systems and what lessons can be learned with extreme programming, process engineering and project management.

English