Authority is relative and is more nuanced. Only in recent human history have we seen a deliberate separation of church and state, for example. Prior to this, they were intertwined to a degree that would be incomprehensible to us now.

As a new pilot myself, I can say with confidence that the FAA has some major flaws and the US congress has been able to get their dirty hands in aviation policy to enact separate rules that did not originate from the recommendations by the NTSB.

Software industry prides itself with low barrier to entry and ageism is absolutely a case. Then in workplace the authorities are things like "Airbnb code guidelines", blog posts (or even tweets!) by evangelists sponsored by Google/Amazon/Meta, or design mockups by designer who hates checkboxes.