262. WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER - On Not Wanting To Win

January 19, 2026 by DaN McKee in Culture, Economics, Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed

“Winning is important to people only because capitalism has made it so. Winning is a means, in our rigged and unfair system, for some of our intentionally limited resources or opportunities to be granted to the victor(s). Winning means access to prizes previously forbidden or inaccessible. But it’s important to acknowledge that prizes are a social construct made meaningful only because of their manufactured scarceness or the inequalities we’ve chosen to allow in the distribution of the resources from which the prize comes.“

260. CHRISTMAS SHOPPING - In Defence of Chainstores

December 15, 2025 by DaN McKee in Christmas, Culture, Economics, Ethics, Gifts, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Pop Culture, Punk

“This is not a defence of capitalism, nor a defence of the current order, but it is a defence of the notion that perhaps the proliferation of corporate chain-stores everywhere, which once made me mourn the quirky individuality of the independent high street, is not necessarily a bad thing.“

258. MAKING A COMPLAINT - What Complaining Tells Us About Those We Complain To

December 01, 2025 by DaN McKee in Communication, Economics, EDI, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Technology, Truth

“Complaints are important in any honest endeavour. A willingness to openness to being told that the thing you’re trying to do is not working and needs to be improved. An honest endeavour wants to hear its complaints because it wants to meet its objectives. It wants to fix those things being complained about.“

215. IT’S OK TO END THINGS - On Saying No Under Capitalism

June 09, 2025 by DaN McKee in Punk, Obligation, Work, Culture, Philosophy Unleashed, Economics, Free, Philosophy, Justice, Art

““I’d prefer not to” - the catchphrase of Melville’s scrivener, Bartleby, is a slogan of privilege. And yet it shouldn’t be. “It’s ok to end things”. And yet for many under capitalism, ending some things are impossible.”

211. TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS - Why the UK Supreme Court Got It Wrong

May 05, 2025 by DaN McKee in Economics, Education, Ethics, Gender, Identity, Justice, LGBTQ, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics

“Despite the court’s lip-service assurance that this judgement does not suddenly make it ok to discriminate against transgender people in the UK, in practice it absolutely does in ways that are both predictable and disgraceful.“

203. IN THE DARK - Medicine, Epistemology and Economics

February 03, 2025 by DaN McKee in Economics, Epistemology, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Medicine

“I wonder if the economics of medicine are too-often overlooked, even in countries with a decent free public healthcare system. I wonder how many people have lived or died because of investigations presenting as questions of epistemology - how can we possibly know what is going on in this body? - which are actually questions of finance - can we justify the expenditure it would take to find out?“

201. THE FORBIDDEN BEAT - Should I Stop Listening to Marilyn Manson?

January 20, 2025 by DaN McKee in Censorship, Communication, Culture, Economics, Media, Music, Movies, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, Punishment

“Manson always was a symptom and not a cause of the social sickness he personified. Watching the documentary this week simply reminded me that the world which created him continues to fail to confront the true causes of its sickness, and points the finger at individuals we can demonise instead of looking in the mirror and asking why such demons continue to exist.“

192. BAND PRAXIS - Punk and the Anarchist Squint

October 20, 2024 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Book, Culture, Economics, Identity, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Punk

Band Praxis - Punk and the Anarchist Squint by DaN McKee (taken from The Anarchism and Punk Book Project’s Book 2 - DIY or Die: Do it Yourself, Do it Together & Punk Anarchism)

188. GRENFELL - On Individual versus Collective Responsibility

September 16, 2024 by DaN McKee in Data, Economics, Education, Ethics, Epistemology, Justice, Meaning, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Punishment

"The Grenfell Inquiry blamed everyone for the tragedy that took 72 lives, but if everyone is responsible, is anyone responsible?"

179. INFERRING THE END - Doom-Spiral or Fallacy?

February 26, 2024 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Economics, Meaning, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed

“We had seen the signs that things weren’t going well. That the wheels were falling off a bit. And we had made the inference - this place was going out of business. And the inference was right.“

175. SUING MADONNA - The Ethics of Honouring Stage Times

January 22, 2024 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Economics, Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture

“is Madonna’s late start really “unconscionable, unfair, and/or deceptive”? In philosophical terms: are such late start times, different from those advertised, genuinely immoral?“

171. RISHI SUNAK'S ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT - Rwanda and the Greatest Fallacy of Which We Can Conceive

November 27, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Economics, Elections, Immigration, Logic, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Truth

“Sunak’s latest descriptive wish of a ‘safe’ Rwanda is just another modern day Gaunilo’s island: a stark example of the demonstrable failings of the ontological argument’s logic and, perhaps, of the UK Prime Minister’s troubling commitment to perpetuating damaging linguistic fantasies instead of solving actual problems in the real world.”

162. PRACTICAL ETHICS - When Do Economies Become Unethical?

September 17, 2023 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Economics, Death, Education, Ethics, Justice, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Punishment, School

“I am interested in the question of whether the practical compromises economies necessarily demand on our actions are, in fact, immoral, and whether such immorality makes these economies not only unfit for purpose, but unfit to such a capacity that we actually have a moral duty to replace them?“

159. TAKING STUDENT SILLINESS SERIOUSLY - Lightning McQueen and the Importance of Battling Deepities

June 24, 2023 by DaN McKee in Culture, Economics, Education, Logic, Movies, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, School

“Like garbage washing up on the shore of a polluted sea, the Philosophy classroom is often where a lot of these deepities come to rest as students, impressed by their apparent wisdom, share them with the one person they think will be equally impressed: their Philosophy teacher. Often those students are soon disappointed, even angry, when that teacher is not impressed at all and, instead, pops the bubble of the illusion and exposes its emptiness.“

155. THE IMPERMANENCE OF VALUE - Fluctuating Perspectives on Worth

May 22, 2023 by DaN McKee in Economics, Epistemology, Meaning, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed

“Philosophers might ask: if value changes all the time, is there really such a thing as value at all? If we can’t pin it down - define it - then is it really anything? Is there anything eternally valuable and undeniably valuable to all? But even in philosophy value fluctuates based on who is doing the valuing. To some thinkers that question is important. Personally, I see no value at all in finding an answer to that question and would rather set my mind to other things.“

127. REMEMBERING WHERE WE CAME FROM - on the privilege of travel

September 05, 2022 by DaN McKee in Culture, Economics, Environment, History, Meaning, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Technology, Work, Travel

“what it is we travel for today? What is the lack we seek to find? What is the need that makes us leave the comfort of our homes and brave the journeys beyond?“

123. THOUGHTS ON STRIKING - Why We Need More Striking, Not Less

June 27, 2022 by DaN McKee in Economics, Ethics, Justice, Media, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Work

“As philosophers we can smell fallacious argument a mile off. We know an ad hominem attack when we see one, attacking the person (or people) rather than the actual idea. When it comes to discourse around striking in this country, it seems that fallacy and fear-mongering abound. And I would suggest that if you can’t counter the actual arguments of the unions you should be supporting their strikes, maybe even joining them, rather than complaining about them or attacking their industrial action.”

122. DUPLICATING SUFFERING - Economics and Ethics When Experimenting With Animals

June 20, 2022 by DaN McKee in Animal Rights, Economics, Death, Ethics, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Vegetarianism

“a possible case could be made for accepting certain, limited, forms of animal experimentation but not within the current economic system because it is structurally set up to maximise, rather than minimise, the possible duplication of unnecessary suffering due to prioritising intellectual property rights over the rights of non-human (and human) animals.“

110. THERE IS NO JUST WAR - There Is Just...War

February 28, 2022 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Authentic Democracy, Economics, Ethics, Justice, Militarisation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, War, Punishment

“It is the concept of nations that lies at the root of the problem of war. It is the global economic systems of manipulated scarcity, inequality and hoarding that motivates taking by violence what can’t be gained legitimately. When we ignore the underlying motivations of invasion and speak only of the good and the bad, we sweep under the rug the tricky truth that we are all culpable for maintaining a global political system that nurtures the conditions for war far more than it inculcates the conditions for peace.“

93. PUNK FETISH - The Unpunk Dismissal of Digital Downloads

September 13, 2021 by DaN McKee in Culture, Economics, Environment, Identity, Meaning, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Pop Culture, Punk, Technology

“punk’s rebellious spirit - punk’s philosophy - is one of questioning norms and facilitating creative expression of new modes of thought and alternative ways of living. Which brings me to my concern - punk, or at least punks of my generation or older, seem to have gotten stuck on a knee-jerk fetishisation of physical music which is blinding them to some of the merits of modern technology and digital expression.“