“Machines don’t mature; they either work or they get replaced by ones that do. Old bodies are merely worn-out machines that possess suboptimal parts. They are past their prime, on the decline, sliding down to uselessness. If they have not already, elders join the ranks of others pushed aside by market values—the poor and developmentally disabled, for instance. Thrown off the line, discarded, and replaced. When what is profitable is good, and what is good is profitable, then persons who no longer produce—including the most rudimentary “goods,” like coherent thoughts and sentences—are in danger of abandonment.”