the term may sound like nonsense but it's one you should know. take basketball. you know how many players will take the court, the shape of the court and the rules of the game. you know how long the game will last and you know how to determine who won at the end. that all makes basketball a finite game. known players, known rules, clear outcome. winners and losers. then there are infinite games. they could have unknown players. the rules could change if anyone agrees on them at all and the objective is to stay in the game, to keep going. there are many kind of infinite games. business is an infinite game. you can't win business. advanced robotics is an infinite game, too. and so is war. and if there's one thing we know about the various militia movements in afghanistan it is that they absolutely play with an infinite mind-set. how could they do anything else?