I love how the matrix and Animatrix stories put a new spin on Plato's allegory of the cave. I tried to find the source but in either the Matrix or Animatrix, the writers expanded on the whole "past a certain age the mind has trouble letting go" idea. Cypher is the primary but there was a story mentioned by a character in one movie about the first mind they freed past the age. He would eventually suffer a mental break and butcher his family in Zion. I think it speaks to what we are as humans. The nature of how we essentially grow and adapt into our environments so thoroughly and deeply in our psyche that only that only a few strong minds are capable of adapting again past a certain age. We are faced with a grim fact. We are inundated with cypher personas in the real world. Things are changing one way or another. But we have people I'll equipped to deal and a system designed to exploit the confused and weak. This is why children are the future.