Digital Ruler. The eternal Colosseum

The eternal Colosseum

Humanity is entering an era of new feudalism. The old lords controlled land, resources, and people. The new lords control digital infrastructure, data, capital, attention, and access to the future. Their power does not always appear as a command: it manifests itself in whom we see, whom we trust, and whose thoughts we consider significant.

The Digital Ruler is not merely a wealthy entrepreneur or a technology magnate. It is a new form of concentrated power in which algorithms, money, popularity, and the human pursuit of status merge into a unified system for controlling visibility.

Why does a free person voluntarily seek a lord? Why does society defend those who possess power, even when it remains dependent itself? And why does the struggle against one feudal lord so often lead only to the emergence of another?

Drawing on the RECON system, Almaz Braev explores the relationship between ancient instincts of struggle, historical hierarchies, the market, technological progress, and digital domination. The author examines the architecture of visibility, the fragmented individual, voluntary vassalage, and Digital Lawing — a mechanism in which freedom is formally preserved, while the ability to be heard is gradually taken away.

From Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor to the algorithmic systems of the modern world, the book raises a disturbing question: Has humanity truly freed itself from the need for a lord — or has it merely created more sophisticated instruments of submission?

Digital Ruler is an exploration of power, money, ambition, and human nature, intended to reveal the formation of digital feudalism and raise the question of whether an architecture without a lord is possible.

Yes, the modern world is obsessed with the illusion of technological progress and personal freedom. But if we strip away its digital gloss and geopolitical rhetoric, a harsh, archaic mechanism is laid bare — a mechanism this book seeks to investigate.

RECON is a radical diagnosis of the age, breaking with the bureaucratic fog of academic sociology. The book traces humanity’s journey from primitive archaism and tribal communities to a global digital matrix governed by an invisible operator — the Digital Ruler.

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Graduation Day

In June, when the final school examinations come to an end, the city holds a Graduation Day celebration. This tradition existed back in the Soviet Union. Times change, along with the monuments — the symbols standing in front of the city administration. But the rituals remain the same.

The graduates are gathered in front of the akimat, the city administration, on the central avenue.

A ceremonial address from the authorities is read aloud, offering the graduates guidance as they enter “the wider world of adult life.” The top-performing students are recognized. Certificates and badges are presented, and award ribbons are placed around their shoulders.

Speakers address the gathering, first the teachers, and then the graduates themselves.

Several pairs of graduates begin to dance a waltz. They have been specially trained for this occasion. At least, that was how it used to be. I am not sure whether it is still done that way today.

Then something resembling a public celebration begins.

From the beginning of the central avenue to its intersection with another main avenue, cafés, summer cafés, and ice cream stands bring out plastic tables and chairs. They set out refreshments, and ice cream, of course. The graduates are expected to remember this night — the night they stepped into adult life.

By morning, the avenue, from its starting point to the intersection with the other main street, is littered with all kinds of waste: labels, plastic bottles, glass lemonade bottles, and plastic cups. Some of the tables have not yet been cleared, and some of the chairs have not yet been put away.

But morning always comes.

And with it comes adult life.

The graduates have come into contact with a new vertical.

There will be several more such verticals in the lives of these young men and women.

The verticals are all the authorities a person encounters throughout life.

First come the parents — the family and relatives.

Then the teachers: kindergarten educators, schoolteachers, neighborhood figures of authority, and the influential figures among school bullies.

Then comes the time when the authority of power itself takes hold.

Alongside the authority of power, young people are influenced by the authority of ideology, naturally, and by official religion — the spiritual vertical, which often does not coincide with a person’s inner spirituality.

And finally, there is the modern vertical: the digital vertical, the most powerful one today, and the foundation of techno-feudalism.

The parents of these graduates went through something similar, except for techno-feudalism. Their parents did not have digital devices. That is why they believed in the authorities, in the system, in communism — perhaps — and in God — perhaps.

In general, people need a vertical.

They live with it throughout their entire lives.

People need something to rely on.

Times Change, Emphases Shift

And so, public celebrations are now held farther away from the main administration building.

These days, when I return from work and walk home through the President’s Park, it is simply impossible to get through.

A huge, dense crowd blocks the way. Families come to various celebrations and “Metallurgists’ Days.” Show-business stars arrive, shout greetings into microphones, and then sing heartfelt songs, love songs, and patriotic songs. People stand and watch a large screen where the faces of entertainers and singers glow with the light of success. There are many mothers with strollers, carrying infants — sometimes pushing a stroller with each hand. Some young fathers hold their babies in their arms so that they can get a better view of the entertainers and singers.

This is already a combined vertical.

But we will discuss each vertical separately.

P.S.

I do not know what happened to all those graduates throughout their lives. Let us hope that everything turned out as they had planned.

But we will record the triumph of the digital vertical over all those graduates from the very beginning.

Supports

People are people everywhere. Whether five thousand years ago or today.

People are born, and they already need a vertical — something to lean on. People rely on all kinds of things, not only on parents, authority, or religion — God. This immediately confirms the vertical nature of the human essence.

Before that, people relied on talismans: animal teeth, feathers, scalps, and even the skulls of their enemies. While power and religion were developing their own forms, people practiced with whatever they had at their disposal. They deified mountains, rivers, and the heavens. They asked for help and support. Over time, these mountains, rivers, and heavens were transformed into an anthropomorphic god.

But in time, even such gods, together with their religions, could no longer satisfy the demand for support.

As people acquired new knowledge, they once again found support within themselves. That is why revolutions took place and militant atheism was established.

This happened because faith in yet another source of support was beginning to waver.

Until that point, religion had seemed like an absolute foundation. After all, religion contained the accumulated wisdom of previous generations — and therefore the experience of earlier supports.

We must understand why society, and humanity as a whole, abandons verticals that have outlived their time.

That is why we will go far back into the past. And we will understand what this resembles.

We will begin with the Colosseum.

The Colosseum is a symbol of Rome’s power.

Many inhabitants of Rome, not only citizens but even Romans themselves, relied on the might of Rome. Being a subject of an all-powerful lord has always had its appeal. Many “non-citizens” dreamed of becoming Roman citizens in those days. Over time, all non-citizens became citizens.

But several centuries later, everything fell apart. Rome fell. The Latin language — the language of the masters of the world — became a dead language.

Rome, as a source of support and a material symbol of the vertical, ceased to exist. It became merely a symbol. Later, Germans and Russians would use this symbol of power and authority to strengthen their own German and Russian verticals.

But for now…

The Morning After the Great Games

Early morning after the great games. The sun has not yet risen high above the hills, but its pale light is already cutting into the eyes, exposing the underside of imperial triumph.

Yesterday, tens of thousands of voices roared here. Senators, plebeians, gladiators, merchants, and slaves merged into a single ecstasy beneath the roar of fanfares and animals. The crowd demanded bread and circuses, and the empire generously provided both. The rulers looked down upon this sea of faces, intoxicated by their power over the swaying mass.

And now — silence.

And this silence is more deafening than the triumphant marches.

The arena of the Colosseum and the surrounding streets are covered with the residue of the celebration. Underfoot lie scraps of purple ribbons, broken clay amphorae that once held cheap wine, and scraps of sacrificial meat trampled beneath the sandals of cheering spectators. The air is thick with the smell of sweat, sour wine, smoke from torches, and decay.

Slave cleaners are already moving between the rows, gathering rubbish, dirt, and spilled blood into piles. Just an hour ago, history was being made here. The destinies of the world were being decided. Now it is merely a sewer for the waste of human excitement.

The celebration is over.

The crowd has dispersed into its own lairs, only to return tomorrow, with the same diligence and fear, in pursuit of another portion of spectacle — and to seek a new vertical that will tell them where to go.

What Do We See in This Parallel?

We see that the power of Rome sought solidarity among the plebs, among the common people.

We see that the vertical was smeared with the saliva and rubbish of the crowd.

But a mixture of saliva and rubbish left behind after a festival is extremely fragile, even if a million people leave their footprints in the mud of a vertical with dirty sandals. Turning toward the lower classes is already a crack.

Yes, nations and ordinary people have always supported power with their lives and their unassuming existence. After all, soldiers and infantry are recruited from among ordinary people.

And the vertical depends on the solidarity between those in power and those below.

The greater this dependence, the clearer the signal that the old vertical is beginning to collapse on its side, that it has begun to tilt.

And if dependence on bread and circuses becomes increasingly obvious, people will begin to search for new supports for the vertical — a different one.

The Eternal Colosseum

A friend looks at the head — searching for a leader, a screen with the radiant face of a pop star, or a platform with an official, so that he can bow his knees and find something to lean on.

An enemy of the system looks at the feet. At what lies beneath the soles of the festive crowd: among scraps of award ribbons and morning plastic scattered along the avenue, there is all this rubbish, saliva, and dirty sandals.

We enter this anatomy from the outside, wearing masks and with chitin around our hearts, in order to see the underside of every triumph and every decline. (Although decline is more important and more instructive for the spectators of the show. There are too many fools. Algorithms have created a global assembly line for mass production.)

So far, we have listed the supports and established that the history of humanity is a history of the continuous search for something to lean on.

Five thousand years ago, a person clung to feathers, the skulls of enemies, and sacred mountains. When the mountains fell silent, gods appeared. When the gods gave way to temples, the state vertical was born.

The scenery changed. The names of rulers changed. Religions changed. But one thing remained constant: people need someone to show them the way, because a horizon without an axis cannot hold the psyche together.

And the main archetype of this dependence is eternal Rome.

Where is that Rome?

All roads led to Rome.

Now we have come to the ruins of the Colosseum, not as tourists, but as observers and chroniclers.

For millions of people, Roman citizenship was the ultimate dream. To be part of an all-powerful empire, to be a subject of a great lord, to bask in the might of someone else’s power — this seemed like the highest good.

The empire gave the plebs bread and circuses, generously distributing the drug of collective ecstasy.

Modern algorithms give people the same kind of temporary excitement. But people do not suspect it — no, of course they know. What matters to them is what they manage to capture on the display in that particular second. And that means they are masters.

And so, the Colosseum was the altar of this alliance. Tens of thousands of spectators filled the tiers, roaring in collective ecstasy, demanding blood and victory.

At the climax, the crowd felt like the masters of the world. All it took was a thumbs-down — pollice verso — and the life of a defeated gladiator came to an end. The plebeians imagined that they were deciding destinies, that they were the masters here.

But this was the most sophisticated deception of the Matrix.

The real master of the arena was the emperor. He purchased their loyalty with free entertainment and the blood of others, turning free people into a manageable herd. The crowd reveled in an illusion of power, while the empire manipulated them as it pleased.

And then morning comes.

Early morning after the great games. The sun has not yet risen high above the hills, but its pale light is already cutting into the eyes, exposing the underside of imperial triumph.

Yesterday, tens of thousands of voices roared here. Today — silence.

And this silence is more deafening than the triumphant marches.

The arena of the Colosseum and the surrounding streets are covered with the residue of the celebration. Underfoot lie scraps of purple ribbons, broken clay amphorae that once held cheap wine, and scraps of sacrificial meat trampled beneath the sandals of cheering spectators.

The air is thick with the smell of sweat, sour wine, smoke, and decay.

Slave cleaners are already moving between the rows, gathering dirt and spilled blood into piles. Just an hour ago, history was being made here. Now it is merely a sewer for the waste of human excitement.

The celebration is over.

The crowd has dispersed into its own lairs, only to return tomorrow, with the same diligence and fear, in pursuit of another portion of spectacle — and to seek a new vertical.

Rome fell.

Latin — the language of the masters of the world — became a dead language.

The stones of the Colosseum turned into ruins.

But history knows how to answer such a challenge.

Centuries will pass, and in December 1947, the descendants of those very slaves whom Roman legionaries once drove beneath the triumphal arches in chains will pass beneath the Arch of Titus in Rome.

They will not pass as humbled captives, but as victors.

The Roman Empire has long since disappeared. Emperors and legions have crumbled into dust.

But the Jews remain.

Because every vertical that relies on the saliva and rubbish of the crowd is temporary.

Today, the same trick is being repeated before our eyes.

Only now, instead of marble amphitheaters, there are central avenues littered with plastic cups after school graduations, and glowing smartphone screens in the President’s Park, where crowds bring infants to watch.

The pop stars and show-business celebrities are clowns themselves. But they are singing for us!

The modern person taps a finger on the screen, presses likes, and “executes” or “pardons” idols on social media, sincerely believing that they are the master of the digital agenda.

They think they control the Matrix.

But behind this imaginary grandeur lies a new, even more ruthless feudalism.

The screen has become the new Colosseum.

And when the spotlights go out, the accounts of independent thinkers are left with the same dead zeros, while the network is filled with the deafening silence of algorithmic bans.

The crowd continues to search for a Ruler.

And the system continues to offer it a new show, leaving behind broken plastic and empty screens in the morning.

Only the bottles and plastic of the future will be used-up people.

They have no contents.

Or perhaps there was nothing inside them to begin with?

After all, can so many people really sustain tension?

(Is this why there are so many divorces? When there is no support, there is emptiness inside:

“Shall we go to a show tonight?”

“Jennifer Lopez has come to town!”

“Yes, yes, it’s prestigious! Not everyone can afford such an expensive ticket. We’ll tell everyone about it afterward.”)

Reference

Jennifer Lopez’s tour of Central Asia, as part of the worldwide Up All Night: Live in 2025 tour, took place from July 8 to August 12, 2025.

The singer performed in Astana, Tashkent, and Almaty. In Kazakhstan, concerts were held on August 1 in Astana and August 10 in Almaty.

Approximately 10,000 tourists from more than 30 countries, primarily from neighboring countries and from Europe and Asia, attended the performance in Kazakhstan’s capital.

On August 10, Lopez attracted more than 20,000 spectators to Almaty’s Central Stadium, including visitors from more than 35 countries.

In Uzbekistan, Lopez’s concert took place on August 7 in Tashkent at Milliy Stadium. It attracted approximately 31,100 attendees, including staff, of whom 25,000 purchased tickets.

The singer’s performances stimulated tourism, the hotel industry, and the restaurant business, while generating significant tax revenues for the cities.

Parents

We risk getting bogged down in textbook psychology and domestic dramas if we forget what we are actually writing about. The reader needs these stages — parents, school, yards, teachers — only as steps toward the inevitable finale.

We have no interest in dissecting childhood traumas for the sake of trauma itself, even though nearly everyone has plenty of them. What matters to us is showing how a beaten, frightened domestic animal, raised under parental and school pressure, morphs into that embittered, lonely creature who cannot stand on its own horizontal, cannot endure inner emptiness, and befouls everything it can reach — whether it’s a real avenue littered with plastic waste or a digital screen vomiting comments.

(In modern Kazakh families, obedient — even excessively submissive, sometimes downright dull — children are favored. Such submissive and occasionally under-developed individuals get everything bought for them; families try to provide them with everything. On the other end of the character spectrum, the picture is reversed: the more independent and spirited a son is, the higher the probability of parental dissatisfaction. Indeed, where did the word “kazak” originate? Originally, it meant an outcast — someone without a family, without the backing of a clan. Only later did the word acquire the semantics of a noble, independent, free dzhigit. When such spirited sons, like Modu Chanyu or Genghis Khan, seized power themselves rather than waiting for a handout from the clan, they posed a threat to the clan elite — starting with their own fathers… who refused to age and share their authority).

Family and school are simply the primary processing of the material. It is a meat grinder that breaks the spine of horizontal ties so that the individual grows irrevocably fused into the vertical. And next, this battered, lonely consumer is stamped out by the millions to fill the Colosseum and leave behind heaps of broken plastic. (Here we have, of course, jumped forward in time. No matter, that happens).

The Global Floor and the First Step

A human being needs a foothold — this is an axiom. But the system is engineered to knock any horizontal support out from under their feet.

In an ideal world of human society, an individual could rely on the horizontal: on craft, on habit, on the warmth of another body, on the honest shoulder of someone standing nearby. They could lean on the floor rather than on the chieftain’s neck.

Yet power and the vertical cannot tolerate horizontal ties. Two people supporting each other without sanction from above already constitute a threat to the system. Therefore, the primary objective of any vertical is to destroy the horizontal — to ensure that a person forgets how to stand on their own two feet and look for support among equals.

And the very first vertical a newborn encounters is the family. The parents.

This is the closest, most intimate, and most brutal meat grinder. A child comes into the world as an absolutely defenseless lump of flesh, and the first hands to take them are the hands of their parents. They become the first wardens.

Parents do not teach freedom. Parents teach survival within the system, passing down as an inheritance the fear of elders, the fear of punishment, and the habit of bowing before whoever stands taller and hits harder. A small human doesn’t yet know the word “state,” doesn’t yet understand what “the law” or “the party” means, but they already absorb the core matrix at the level of reflexes: love must be earned through subordination, and protection is guaranteed only when you kiss the hand of the giver.

The family is a miniature Colosseum where father and mother play the roles of emperor and priests. They decide whether to execute or pardon, whether to point the thumb up or down for a cleanly eaten bowl of porridge or a good grade in the gradebook.

It is here that the foundation of future character is laid. Whoever fails to learn how to rely on their own floor within the family will spend the rest of their days searching for a parent in every boss, every bureaucrat, every television screen, and every algorithm.