“They eat their own.”

That phrase has been stuck in my head for weeks. At first I thought I was writing about consulting firms, corporate hierarchies, aging workers, or the way professional systems quietly consume people once their economic utility begins to dim. But that is not really the deeper trigger.

Recently I reread something from Andrew Weil on healthy aging that hit me harder than I expected. He described the visceral disgust some people feel when confronted with old age and fragility in others. His point was uncomfortable: much of that reaction is fear. The older fragile person is a reminder of where we ourselves are going.

I recognized the feeling immediately. Not because I hate aging. Aging is reality. But because I hate the loss of agency attached to it. And modern professional systems intensify that fear because they quietly transform aging into economics.

• Too expensive.
• Too many miles.
• Too much maintenance.
• Not enough runway left.
• Transition to advisory roles.
• Move aside for “fresh energy.”

The system starts discounting people before actual decline is even proven. That is the part that feels predatory to me. Not that younger people rise. They should. Not that innovation displaces old methods. It always will. But that institutions often decide a person’s remaining value statistically and politically rather than individually.

I know people in their 40s already intellectually finished. I know people in their 70s still learning aggressively, adapting, building, contributing, evolving. Yet our systems prefer simplified narratives because simplified narratives are easier to manage.

“Retirement age.” As though usefulness obeys a calendar.

And maybe that is what I was really trying to say with “they eat their own.” Not that capitalism is uniquely cruel. Nature itself is unsentimental. It is that human systems often become uncomfortable with people the moment they stop fitting neatly into optimized economic models. The young are consumed through exhaustion. The old through premature irrelevance. And everyone in between quietly understands the bargain.

Which is why AI fascinates me emotionally as much as intellectually. To many experienced professionals, AI feels like replacement. To me, part of it feels like resistance against premature categorization. Not because AI makes us immortal. It does not. Not because AI replaces judgment. It cannot. But because AI may extend the productive leverage of people who continue learning instead of freezing in credentialed certainty.

The adaptive may remain useful longer. The intellectually curious may retain independence longer. And the gatekeepers controlling access to information may weaken.

Maybe that changes nothing fundamental. “The Man” will still exist. Human hierarchies are eternal. But perhaps the center of gravity shifts a little back toward observable capability and a little away from assumptions tied to age, status, or institutional pedigree. I hope so. Because I would like the right to decide for myself when my remaining ROI is truly gone.