Human Agency
"No one ever conceived of a more sophisticated and dynamic philosophical history than Hegel. His system is built around three fundamental ideas."
Sam Haselby
In summary ...
First, the key to human agency is self-consciousness. For people to be doing anything in any real human sense is to know what we are doing as we do it.
Secondly, self-consciousness is always a matter of locating ourselves in a kind of social space of ‘I’ and ‘we’.
Third, there are ways in which things can go better or worse and we can make it possible to become new, different and better versions of ourselves. But what we can make of ourselves depends on where we are in history.
... but what we can make of ourselves depends on where we are in history.
Hegel’s search for the universal patterns of history revealed a paradox: freedom is coming into being, but is never guaranteed
Read the whole thing at
Thinking Allowed
This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.- More about People First
- Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)
Cleaning House
More of a record to self than something to overly concern you, but nonetheless potentially useful. As People First continues to further establish itself, we are 'upping the ante' on our online presence.

First, we are moving the site away from the
There has been a Google Groups in place for years, but it fell into disuse, so it is being killed and replaced with a new group on Groups.io Emails have gone out to the old membership to test the appetite before I spend too much time building it all up. I can say that I have good experience of it, since a 'sister' organization - Me2B - is using Groups.io very effectively.
We have agreed to our first Sponsorship, more details about it in the not too distant future.
Tomorrow being Tuesday, will see our seventh newsletter hitting the streets (if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor), really wanting to grow that readership.
The Instagram and Twitter accounts are in full flow and a presence on a few third-party publishers is beginning to happen, with plans for more. Any of the links below will allow you to engage with People First in your way and on your terms.
Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Fire
”I am moving more of my long-form writing to Medium, and placing it behind the paywall there. I have a considerable following there, and I find Medium’s social affordances the best anywhere. I still like certain aspects of Tumblr, but my time there is coming to an end, I think, at least for long form.”
Stowe Boyd
.. who IMHO is moving from one problem to another.
Last year from the very first public beta of macOS and iOS it was so stable I was tempted to install everywhere.
This year I’m on Public Beta 2 and so unstable I’m wondering if it will be ready in time!
🎵 Just updated the contributors page on Just Good Music - 10 authors in total - we have a couple more registered - but they have yet to throw up a post. Wonderful to see the variety of music being written about.
🎛️ A Snicklecast: Flawed Thinking
Somethings you just do not do in the ‘atom world’ - but in the ‘bits world’, it’s a totally different story.
Not to me.
That’s partly why I launched People First
You used to walk into a bar and ask for the drink you want … it now appears that you walk into a bar and preface that concept with
”I want to design a … with you”
Seriously?
Do NOT get me started.
”Almighty himself apparently decided to rain on Trump’s parade.
Not mine, but sorry, can’t recall where I read it today.
Considering the ongoing and growing concern that we humans are turning our oceans into plastic, I can’t help wondering if Catalina (Apple’s new MacOS) is some kind of metaphor for it being a ‘rock in an ocean of plastic’?
The Privacy Manifesto managed under the direction of Doc Searls has just been given an update.
As I read Dave Winer this morning, I was reminded of one of the tenet’s of People First.
”We have seen it so many times before, this pack mentality, this unprovoked loutishness, this excruciatingly entitled sense that it is acceptable, even imperative, to colonise a public space and behave absurdly rudely in it.
I thought they were talking about English football crowds again …. but no …
The most unstable app I am running on OS13 beta is …
MicroBlog.
Uber bug sending drivers to final destinations before picking up passengers.
I know, I know, I shouldn’t laugh.
“Mr Osborne will need the nomination of Britain’s next prime minister to succeed (with his IMF ambition). The Evening Standard, which he edits, recently endorsed Boris Johnson in the leadership race.”
… and they wonder why we’re pissed.
MAD Magazine to Effectively Close After 67 Years
“After Mad, drugs were nothing.”
Patti Smith
I love how they are ‘effectively' closing as if closing the print edition and only running previous published stories is anything but!
Harsh - but fair.
The Tories are there to be demolished. But Labour is too inept to do it.
Truth begets Fiction begets Truth ….
‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Leads to 1MDB Arrest of Ousted Malaysian Leader’s Stepson