The list of past commencement speakers at the MIT is suitably impressive — Nobel Prize winners and past presidents, governors and senators among them.<br />“And who did you get?”<br />Matt Damon joked Friday morning during his address to the class of 2016.<br />“A guy who did the voice for a cartoon horse.”<br />Damon’s presence at MIT’s commencement was due in large part to his philanthropic commitment to providing clean water for disadvantaged populations around the world.<br />Building on that experience, he spoke with emotion about the global problems this year’s graduates might attack, including poverty, pandemic, climate change, and “fear-driven brains working overtime.”<br />Damon also took the opportunity to score a few political points.<br />Noting his current fascination with simulation theory, which hypothesizes multiple realities, he asked, “How come we have to be in the one where Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee?”
