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Greetings from Plato's Playground |
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Written by Eric Watt
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Apr 08, 2006 at 03:53 AM |
Following our first week of being online, we discuss who and what we are, as well as what we hope to accomplish.
Greetings. As you may have noticed, Plato's Playground has successfully launched as of April 1st, 2006. While we are still working on the last few areas of the site, things seem to generally be running smoothly. I wanted to take a moment to explain what Plato's Playground is about, and where we hope to be going.
One of the things we hope to accomplish with this site is to think critically about what is happening in the world around us. We are not a news agency, so you are not going to see breaking news here. Instead, we hope to instill upon you our unique perspective on events and the significance we feel it holds for our society. We encourage you to participate. Our forums are available for general conversations, and following every front page posting there is a link to a discussion page where you can share comments, opinions, or counterexamples. Feel free to disagree with us, as it is through conscientious discussion that we really begin to increase our level of understanding. In fact, you will find that we are a diverse group of people, and tend to disagree with each other on many different issues.
Another ideal that we feel is important is to have fun. We are not getting paid, we are not gaining fame. Instead, we enjoy what we do, and wish to talk about our thoughts with others. We hope this shows through the way we manage this site, and that this increases your enjoyment of Plato's Playground.
These two principles are expressed in the name of our site. Plato, the famous Greek philosopher, was very influential in the development of critical thought. A playground is obviously a place where you go to have fun. Together, they suggest a type of intellectual playground, which is what we hope to provide here. A place where we can all come together, discuss things, and have fun doing so.
While we are still working on the about us page, I thought I would take a moment to introduce our authors. My name is Eric, and I will be mainly writing about the happenings in the world of science and technology. I am a biophysical chemistry PhD student with a strong interest in computers and technology. Lev is an MD/PhD student at the University of Michigan, and will be handling our disease of the week articles, as well as any news that relates to medicine. Alex is our resident architect and will cover events in the world of art and design. Reyne is also a chemistry PhD student, but will be focusing more on political happenings. We hope that this diverse group of interests will provide something for everyone, while also exposing you to new ideas.
The organization of our site is subject to change, but currently we have 3 general categories. News will give a short coverage of a current event, along with our thoughts on the implications of the particular event. Articles will be longer in length. Instead of focusing on a single event, they will tend to synthesize many events and ideas into a coherent argument. For example, there may be a news post on a school shooting, and then an article on gun rights.
Our third category is very unique. Disease of the week (DOTW for short) will mainly be written by Lev, and will be updated every Saturday. Our goal is to cover the history, symptoms, and treatments of common (and not so common) diseases. While they may be written at a technical level, we hope to explain the disease in enough detail so that a general audience can understand. DOTW will typically follow a theme. This month's theme is autoimmune diseases. Last week we learned about Type I Diabetes, and this week we will learn about Rheumatoid Arthritis.
As we get more content, you may wish to visit our archive page at the bottom. There we will have a link to all of the news, articles, and DOTW that we have posted.
Again, thank you for taking the time to visit our website, and we would love to hear from you. Any feedback that you wish to give us is much appreciated, even if you just want to say 'hi'.
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