Алмаз Браев – Digital Ruler. The eternal Colosseum (страница 1)

Digital Ruler

The eternal Colosseum

Almaz Braev

© Almaz Braev, 2026

ISBN 978-5-0071-4366-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

DIGITAL RULER

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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Chapter 1

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.

Chapter 2

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…