On a popular work-based website I added a post and to it’s associated image, a description to the image's alt tag – a feature available during its post-making process, but one many don’t seem to use (even though they may espouse supporting and helping others).

<img src="[path/to/source/filename.jpg]" alt="[Alternative text typically describes non-decorative images to aid visually impaired users who use assistive technology that enables them to interact with non-type based web content; the words will get spoken to them, just like a paragraph of text.]"/>

In case the network effects of the threads of our networked (digital) society might sort of, you know, not connect... or the very (old and regular) features of the internet and its accessibility options which are used and allowed by a global, social network to assist people but unfortunately its users who no doubt know everything, don't know (or care?) about using and supporting the feature and breaking a few societal assumptions, expectations and barriers down that prevent all from interpreting something in slightly non-mainstream ways but still as its author intended its message to be understood... you know, author’s of posts taking responsibility for what they so-say espouse and do... anyway, here are the words written to support a blank image’s alternative text attribute...

This post image doesn’t show anything. It’s just white; blank space. A bit like the many post images showing something to support someone’s post (oh, look at that, or them with someone or them in the outdoors with some trees and plants to show how relevant and conscientious they are, or something similar) and that doesn’t use the alt option provided to write a supporting message that explains the post’s image, so that if someone was using supportive technologies, like a screen reader, maybe even one like Apple’s built-in macOS and iOS VoiceOver functionality, they could appreciate and understand a little more of a sighted world that often under appreciates and misrepresents visually impaired and even cognitively atypical people. Regardless of whether your audience may not require that accessibility to interacting with these things is irrelevant. Make the effort and do it without prejudice, oversight or indifference to others you may never even meet.

Alternative text Of the post’s blank image

For the record, the post was a written piece of opinion and observation by me that, pretty much, was close to the maximum character count allowed.

The post that was posted

You may have an opinion as long as it fits and matches the current one and/or the question being posed that’s aiming to be seen and stand out from the crowd in the bubble/echo chamber/channel being used... that many in the crowd use to try and stand out from the same crowd in an already visually and audibly noisy, attention-seeking world... with some then claiming we need and championing things like the outdoors and nature like it’s some kind of new idea... and how AI (it’s just machine learning and masses of data/statistics, led invariably by biased algorithms), might assist/solve many things but, realistically, make many jobs redundant... so, ‘How might you feel about that?’ they ask to those in the bubble that likely have and are doing jobs that’ll be okay for the foreseeable future anyway.

Privileged sentiment can be meaningful and relevant but really would be better directed toward gaining more active civic systems and processes, to help end political short-term goals, moralising, target setting, managerial ethos and love of roles and hierarchies and instead help to enable more societal crossovers, integrations and interactions, learnings and developments that don’t fit (or get led by) electoral systems and don’t allow (bad) apples to be re-attached to the tree.

If you’re not targeting the source(s) and just hanging on to aged attitudes, heritage and conventions because it’s always been done like that, what real and societal change is possible?

Like Greta Thunberg says, it all just seems like ‘Blah blah blah’ but, the following words from Naomi Klein (taken from her book Doppelganger) add hopefully productively to the conversation:

‘I believe the starting point for building a more caring society,’ writes Sally Weintrobe, a psychoanalyst who specialises in the climate crisis, ‘is never forgetting that care and uncare are inherent parts of us all, and that each seeks expression and dominance over the other.’ In other words, we (not just those evil others) are all in a perpetual struggle with our that-and-thisness. The trouble is, we live in a society that encourages and rewards the uncaring parts of ourselves, while making it hard to care for others outside our immediate family (and often within it) in any sustained way. So, Weintrobe argues, if we want more people to make better choices – not to shop for useless stuff as a source of solace, not to spread disinformation for clicks and clout, not to see other people’s vulnerability and need as a threat to our own interests – we need better structures and systems.

Personally, and to no one’s surprise, I think the jury is in on capitalism: it lights up our most uncaring, competitive parts and is failing us on every front that matters. What we need are systems that light up our better selves, the parts of ourselves that want to look outward at a world in crisis and join the work of repair. Systems that make it easier, in ways big and small, for care to win the battle over uncare.

The quote at posted post’s end was the end of the post.

These words end this post that talks about a posted post.

No, these words do: the end.