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the most famous invention of the ai lab's most famous alumnus is the GNU "copyleft" (his term, not mine).

the lab people are so far left that they have almost become far right libertarians. don't expect much

As an MIT undergraduate 20-odd years ago, me and most of us were all in frats thinking about the next beer bash and how Wellesley girls were a buncha bitches and Simmons girls were great, and so on. But not the graduate students. A hell of a LOT of them were middle eastern, very serious, and boy did they hate the US, the CIA and Israel. I had long discussions with a Lebanese grad student since we were pretty much chained together during a long wind tunnel experiment stretching over weeks.

We got along although we totally disagreed on politics. But what I definitely came away with was the distinct feeling that he and a lot of the other middle eastern grad students were learning all they could and biding their time, and that one day all this technology we were providing to them via our schools was going to come right back at us.

There are several Diplomacy players on FR. Great game. It's basically RISK without the dice, and you have to convince other to help you out.

Most online Diplomacy games are run by electronic "judges" that figure out the results of every turn, and a human Game Master who takes care of any problems. Online games usually wind up having players from around the world.

Now for the pertinent part of my post... every judge and Game Master that belongs to the Diplomatic Pouch has suspended or delayed their games, in light of Black Tuesday. Most of the games I am playing in have taken time to either ask the American players for their thoughts and the latest news, or to share their feelings of outrage at the heinous acts (despite the fact that the games are usually adamant about not sharing personal thoughts, as that could lead to revealing secrets in the games). All have been open, polite, supportive, and generous with their thoughtful words. All have put the games away, and have prioritized things properly. None have dared to criticize or poured salt in our open wounds.