In Memoriam - Part 2

SEPTEMBER 2254.

Dr. Bonnie has been with me the most lately.  The
others seem to be busy with other things.  I think they are working on
something for me, but they don't seem to do much machine or science
stuff.  All they talk about is protests and government and other stuff. 
Politics stuff.

Today was a special day, because Dr. Bonnie told
me that my HMI had been upgraded.  Now I have a device called a MINI.

Memory-Integrated
Neural Interface (MINI).

She says they changed the name from HMI
because "mini" means "small", and the machine got even smaller than it
used to be.  She says I won't have to keep my head shaved any more.  She
showed me some pictures of what I used to look like with hair.  I
really looked funny!

She says that with the MINI, I can remember
more stuff.  I tried it today, when Dr. Fred was talking to himself and I
was listening.  He was talking about politics, so I tried to remember
what politics was.  Let me write down what I thought about.

Politics
is the exercise of decision-making among human institutions or social
groups.  It is a function of power and influence, perceived or actual,
in specific incarnations such as material wealth, energy generation,
force of personality, or popular support.  Politics is the means by
which such instruments are wielded to achieve an end within the context
of a society.  In other words, it's how people get around to agreeing to
all do something.

Politics has its origins in the city-states of
the Sumerian culture, and found an early pinnacle of expression in
Greek.  The Greek word for city-state is "polis", whence "politics",
since the earliest foci for political activity were naturally where the
most people gravitated together.

The source of political power
since the rise of the Ark-Territories has been hotly disputed, since
many of the classical tendencies toward human organization, such as the
availability of natural resources, have declined to zero since departing
Earth.  Since Territories are ad-hoc organizations of starship-states
and can change allegiances at any time, traditional governance is merely
a remembrance, and the boundaries of legal-classical political
authority are drawn more along cultural lines than along regional ones.

Wow! 
I remembered pretty well!