rmb wrote:Gday Nick I know that the Kelly Slater Outerknown venture and his motives have been dissected online.
My question to you is as a surfer and consumer are there things that have to meet your own ethics before you part with your hard earned money? For example clothing and the conditions which textile workers are subject to in the manufacturing chain? Purchasing Australian made surfboards? or Environmental credentials of companies?
I know everyone has a different perspective on what is Ethical and what isn't but I can relate to the motives which Kelly Slater has for his Outerknown clothing label in regards to environmentally responsible sourcing of materials etc.
Look I could go into some spiel about how pure I am but it would be total bullshit, I usually know almost nothing about the supply chains of the shit I buy whether it be clothing, tools, petrol, wine, electricity, natural gas, cups of coffee, meat (I trust the labelling), various spices, cars, TVs, computers, pharmaceutical drugs, furniture, dog food, or thousand other things. I constantly buy food about which I know next to nothing.
Australian made surfboards, pffft, what do you know about where the raw materials come from? Like where the crude oil was sourced that ended up as the base for the TDI and benzene and phthatic and maelic acids that were the base for your PU/PE board? No. Nobody does. Neither do I.
In my retarded world, the ethic is: does it work and last? Do I judge it worth my money? If so I will go back. If not I will question the shit out of it.
That said, I am vulnerable to marketing, I can be sucked into trying or buying something if it makes a convincing case for being worthwhile on a wide range of levels. I can feel the puppet strings being pulled and I do give in all the time on small ticket items. But if they turn out shit I don't go back there, unless I like how shit they are. Like movies, some of those are absolute shit but I still pay to see them.
