The Financialization of the Soul: Digital Assets and You, Inc.

Lena: Hey everyone, it’s so great to have you with us today. I was scrolling through my phone the other morning—you know that half-awake, blurry-eyed state—and I had this sudden, jarring realization. I wasn't just looking at my friends’ photos or reading the news; I was checking the "market value" of my own life. Every like, every share, every professional update felt like a tiny fluctuation in a stock price I never agreed to list. It made me wonder: when did we stop being people and start being assets?

Miles: That’s a heavy way to wake up, but you’re hitting on the exact tension we’re diving into today. It’s this constant friction between the human heart—which really just wants stillness, privacy, and those quiet, unrecorded moments—and our digital profiles, which the modern economy treats as restless financial assets . We’re living in a world that’s increasingly trying to price everything, including the very essence of who we are.

Lena: It feels like there’s a Wall Street terminal running in the background of our souls. I saw this art project called You, Inc. that actually makes this visible. The creator, Aaron, turned his entire life into a trading interface . His resume looks like SEC regulatory filings. If he changes careers, the system logs it as a "strategic restructuring." It’s a perfect, if terrifying, metaphor for how the digital economy views us.

Miles: And the wildest part of that project is the "Request to Delist" button. When you click it, the system just says "no" because you’re still being mentioned in public discourse . It captures that feeling that we can’t opt out of a market that never asked our permission to list us in the first place.

Lena: That is exactly what we’re exploring today—how our identity has been swapped for a "digital profile" that has to perform 24/7. We’re going to look at how we got here, from the invention of the "self" to the "creator coin" gold rush, and figure out what happens to the parts of us that can’t be charted or traded.

Miles: It’s a journey from the ancient concept of the soul to the high-frequency trading of human attention. So, let’s dive into how this "financialization" of the human spirit actually works.

Lena: To really understand why it feels so weird to be a "personal brand" today, we have to look back at what we used to call ourselves. I was reading a piece by Mary Harrington where she argues that our concept of who we are has gone through these massive shifts tied to technology . We started with "souls," then moved to "selves," and now we’re stuck with "identities."

Miles: It’s a fascinating timeline. Harrington points out that the word "identity" didn’t even hit the mainstream until after the World Wars, and it really took off in the 1960s . Before that, the "soul" was the dominant framework, which emerged alongside literacy. Reading and writing gave us that first sense of a deep, private interior life—what scholars call "deep literacy" .

Lena: So literacy gave us the "soul," and then the printing press gave us the "secular self." But now, the digital era is giving us something much more... fragmented. Harrington calls "identity" the dead byproduct of applying our technologies to our own minds and bodies . It’s like we’ve turned the tools of the industrial revolution inward.

Miles: Right, and that’s where the "restless financial asset" part comes in. If you think of yourself as a soul, you have inherent value that’s totally independent of what anyone thinks. But an "identity" needs constant validation to feel real. In the digital world, that validation comes in the form of metrics. We’ve unmoored our sense of self from our bodies and our local communities and tied it to these virtual avatars that need "likes" to survive .

Lena: It’s that shift from being to performing. If my value is tied to my "identity," and my identity is digital, then I have to keep producing content to prove I exist. It’s why we feel that pressure to document everything. A quiet walk in the woods doesn't "count" for the digital profile unless there’s a photo of it.

Miles: Exactly. We’ve moved into what some call the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" or the transhumanist age, where we’ve merged with our tech . The smartphone is the ultimate example. It’s not just a tool; it’s an "always-on" connection that forces us to curate our lives for a dematerialized audience . We’re no longer just living; we’re managing a portfolio of "signals" that the market can sort and price .

Lena: It makes me think about how disorienting it is to realize that our uniqueness—the thing that makes us us—is being reduced to a "confidence threshold" by an algorithm . We’re being squeezed into categories so we can be more legible to the market.

Miles: And that legibility is the prerequisite for the "You, Inc." model. But before we get to the literal trading of people, we have to look at the systems that paved the way—the ones that started treating us like numbers long before the first "creator coin" was minted.

Lena: You know, it’s easy to blame social media for all of this, but the groundwork for "You, Inc." was laid decades ago. Think about the credit score. It’s a number between 300 and 850 that basically determines your life—where you can live, what you can buy, even what jobs you can get . We never signed up for that. We were just... assigned a value.

Miles: That’s a perfect example of how we’ve been compressed into data points without our consent. And those numbers aren't neutral. They often encode existing inequalities—like how people in lower income brackets are systematically underscored compared to their actual behavior . It’s a form of "financial legibility" that doesn't actually see the person; it just sees the risk.

Lena: It’s like we’re all walking around with an invisible ticker symbol over our heads. Remember Klout? A few years ago, it tried to assign everyone a social media "influence score" . Even if you didn't want a score, companies were using it to make hiring decisions. It was an early, clunky version of what’s happening now with data brokers.

Miles: Data brokers are the real "market makers" here. They’re trading detailed profiles on millions of us—browsing history, location, shopping habits—and they’re doing it in a market we can't even see . We are already commodities. The "You, Inc." art piece just makes that hidden reality visible by using the language of Bloomberg terminals and SEC filings .

Lena: What really got me about that project was how the algorithm would try to merge the creator's data with other people who had the same name—a basketball coach in Colorado, a tea buyer in California . To the machine, you aren't a unique human being; you’re a "namespace" . If your data signals are close enough to someone else's, the system would evaluate whether their data should be merged with yours, assign a confidence score, and then reject them

Miles: It’s a complete erasure of the individual. When your life is reduced to "material events" and "strategic restructurings," the things that actually make you human—the connections, the interior growth—they just disappear from the record because they can't be charted .

Lena: And that erasure isn't just a side effect; it’s a requirement for the market to function. For an asset to be tradable, it has to be standardized. But humans aren't standard. We’re messy and unpredictable. So the system tries to "optimize" us for market legibility, which is just a fancy way of saying it tries to make us act more like predictable assets.

Miles: This brings us to a really tough question: if we’re already being priced and traded by data brokers and credit agencies, what happens when we start doing it to ourselves? What happens when we lean into the "You, Inc." model and start launching our own coins?

Lena: So, we’ve talked about how we’re being commodified from the outside, but now there’s this massive push for us to commodify ourselves. Every major crypto platform is trying to get creators to launch "personal tokens" or "writer coins" . The pitch sounds so empowering: "Own your upside! Let your fans invest in you!"

Miles: It’s the ultimate "hustle culture" dream, right? But the reality is much darker. When you tokenize yourself, your worth becomes a matter of pure financial speculation. Your favorite author or artist isn't a person anymore; they’re a "financial instrument" . Their coin price rises and falls based on what people think they’ll earn in the future.

Lena: It sounds like a nightmare for creativity. If my "price" drops because I haven't posted in two days, I’m going to feel this intense pressure to perform, not because I have something to say, but to protect my "valuation" . You end up managing yourself like a PR firm manages a corporation. Every decision has to pass through an "investor relations filter" .

Miles: We’ve already seen how this goes wrong. Take BitClout, for example. Back in 2024, the SEC charged its founder with fraud. The platform had scraped 15,000 Twitter profiles and created tokens for people without even asking them . Even the Prime Minister of Singapore found people speculating on a coin with his face on it.

Lena: And then there was Friend.tech. The founders walked away with $44 million, leaving users holding worthless tokens tied to people who never even agreed to be traded . It’s a "pump and dump" scheme, but the "stock" is a human being.

Miles: The industry didn't stop, though. They just rebranded. Instead of "we’re tokenizing you," the message is now "you should tokenize yourself" . It’s the same operation, just with better marketing. It’s trying to convince us that the only way to survive the attention economy is to become a literal commodity.

Lena: It feels like we’re being told to lean into the very thing that’s making us miserable. If the digital profile is a "restless financial asset," then launching a token is like giving that asset a high-octane fuel . It demands constant growth, constant performance, and constant "restlessness."

Miles: And that restlessness is the direct enemy of the "stillness" the human heart craves. We’re being forced to choose between being a person and being a "creator coin." But is it even possible to stay human when the world is trying to put a price tag on your soul?

Lena: I want to go back to something Aaron mentioned in his You, Inc. project. He talks about how, when you reduce a life to metrics, the most important things just... vanish. Those moments of real connection, the impact you had on someone that was never documented, the interior experiences that don't fit on a chart .

Miles: It’s so true. Think about the last time a piece of writing or a piece of art really shifted something inside you. You probably never told the creator. That moment was incredibly real, but it left no digital trace . In the "You, Inc." model, that moment doesn't exist because it didn't drive "market performance."

Lena: We’re losing the "unvalued" moments—the ones that are precious precisely because they aren't for sale. Mary Harrington talks about this too, how our efforts to "re-engineer" our desires and identities have led to a kind of "deadening" . We’ve turned eros—our deep desires—into "limbic capitalism," where industries just hack our pleasure centers for profit .

Miles: And we’ve turned thumos—that ancient drive for recognition and spirit—into "clicktivism" and influencer status . Instead of seeking real honor or achievement in our communities, we’re chasing "likes" from a de-materialized audience. It’s a "hall of mirrors" where we’re constantly looking for a reflection that feels real, but it never quite does .

Lena: It’s like we’re trying to satisfy a spiritual hunger with digital calories. Harrington makes this point that "identity" is just a "dead byproduct" of trying to commodify the soul . The more we try to "capture" who we are in a digital profile, the more the actual "self" recedes.

Miles: It’s the ultimate irony. We’re performing more than ever to prove who we are, but the performance itself is what’s killing the very thing we’re trying to show. We’ve accepted a version of "reality" that’s mechanistic and "expressively dead," where everything is just matter to be mastered and managed .

Lena: But what if the world isn't "expressively dead"? Harrington brings up quantum physics and this idea that the universe is way weirder and more "entangled" than the modernist model admits . If the world isn't just a machine, then maybe we aren't just assets in a market.

Miles: That’s the "saving power" she talks about. If we can step out of that "modernist cul-de-sac" and realize that consciousness isn't just computation, we might find a way to reclaim our souls from the ticker tape . But that requires a radical shift in how we spend our time and attention.

Lena: We’ve been talking about this tension as a philosophical one, but it’s also a very physical, daily struggle. Jenny Odell, in her book How to Do Nothing, talks about the "attention economy" as this constant drain on our ability to actually inhabit our own lives . It’s not just that we’re being commodified; it’s that we’re being exhausted.

Miles: Right, the "restless" part of the "restless financial asset." If you’re an asset in an attention economy, any moment you aren't "performing" is a moment of lost value. It’s why we feel guilty for just sitting still, or for doing something that doesn't "produce" anything .

Lena: It’s that internal "investor relations filter" we mentioned earlier . It starts to colonize our leisure time. You’re at a beautiful sunset, and instead of just feeling it, your brain starts composing the caption. You’ve become a character in your own life, managed for external confidence rather than internal truth .

Miles: And this has real consequences for our communities. When we’re all focused on our own "personal brands," we lose the ability to organize for anything bigger than ourselves. Harrington points out how "identity politics" often ends up being more about "merchandise and personal branding" than actual solidary movement-building .

Lena: It’s "clicktivism" instead of community action. It’s much easier to post a flag or a slogan than to do the messy, unrecorded work of actually helping a neighbor or building an institution. The digital profile demands "performance," and performance is often the opposite of real work.

Miles: There’s also the cost of what Harrington calls "dead thinking"—this probabilistic calculation we see in AI that we’re starting to mistake for real comprehension . We’re starting to treat our own thoughts as "data to be processed" rather than "ideas to be explored." We’re losing the "deep reading" and "itemized introspection" that literacy once gave us .

Lena: It feels like we’re being hollowed out. We’re "entities" with "market performance," but we’re losing the capacity for the very things that make life worth living—silence, contemplation, and those deep, "unvalued" connections .

Miles: So, if the "You, Inc." model is an "epistemological cul-de-sac," how do we find the exit? Is it as simple as "doing nothing," or is there something more radical we need to do to protect the "stillness of the heart"?

Lena: If the most radical thing we can do is something that can't be priced, what does that actually look like in 2026? Aaron suggests a few things: a conversation you don't record, care that produces no "content," or a decision that never enters a database .

Miles: It’s about accepting being "unvalued" by the market. Think about the parent who puts their phone away to be fully present with their kid, or the friendship that deliberately leaves no digital trace . Those moments are "radical" because they refuse to be converted into performance metrics.

Lena: Jenny Odell calls this "standing apart" . It’s not necessarily about "unplugging" and living in a cave; it’s about shifting our "point of view" so that the attention economy isn't the only thing we see. It’s about rediscovering the "physical proximity" and "interpersonal relationships" that haven't been de-materialized into "identities" .

Miles: Harrington echoes this when she says we need to retrieve the "older and fuller understanding of ourselves" as souls rather than data processors . We have to insist on the "conceptual distinction" between the soul and the simulacra we’ve engineered . My "creator coin" is not me. My "influence score" is not me.

Lena: It’s a form of "digital privacy" that goes deeper than just hiding your data. It’s about keeping some part of your self private from your own "profile." It’s about refusing to let the "investor relations filter" decide who you are or what you do .

Miles: But we have to be honest—this is hard. We live in a world that "prices everything" . Opting out feels like a luxury, or even a professional risk. If you don't have a digital presence, do you even exist in the modern economy?

Lena: That’s the trap, isn't it? The "You, Inc." project shows that even if you try to "delist," the system keeps tracking you anyway . But maybe the goal isn't to perfectly "opt out" of the system, but to stop letting it "opt in" to our hearts.

Miles: It’s about creating "pockets of stillness" within the noise. It’s about recognizing that "computation and comprehension are not the same thing" . We can use the tools of the digital era without becoming the tools ourselves.

Lena: So, let’s get practical. For everyone listening who feels that "ticker tape" running in their head, how do we actually start to push back? How do we protect the "stillness of the heart" in a world that wants us to be "restless financial assets"?

Miles: First, I think we have to audit our "performance." Ask yourself: "How much of what I did today was for the benefit of my 'digital profile' versus my actual 'self'?" If you’re only doing things because they’ll make for a good post, that’s a sign the "You, Inc." filter has taken over .

Lena: I love the idea of "deliberate invisibility." Try doing something meaningful—something you’re proud of—and then not telling anyone online about it. Let it stay "unvalued" by the market . That builds a kind of "internal sovereignty" that the attention economy can't touch.

Miles: Another big one is rediscovering "deep literacy." Put down the phone and the "probabilistic calculations" of social media and pick up a book that requires "itemized introspection" . Give your brain the chance to engage in "comprehension" rather than just "pattern recognition" .

Lena: And don't forget the power of "physical proximity." Spend time with people who know you as a "soul" and a "self," not as an "identity" or a "brand" . Real-world connections are "messy" and "unpredictable," which is exactly why the market hates them and why we need them so much.

Miles: We also need to be wary of "limbic capitalism." Recognize when an app or a platform is trying to "hijack" your desires for profit . When you feel that "restless" urge to check your notifications, remind yourself that you are not a "financial asset" that needs to be "updated" every few seconds.

Lena: It’s also about political awareness. Support efforts that push back against the "datafication" of our lives. Whether it’s fighting against biased credit scoring or demanding more control over how data brokers trade our "namespaces," we have to recognize that this is a systemic issue, not just a personal one .

Miles: Ultimately, it’s about deciding what "progress" really looks like. Is it "owning our upside" through tokens, or is it pursuing "human flourishing" across all parts of our nature—eros, thumos, and logos ?

Lena: It’s a daily choice. Every time we choose "stillness" over "performance," we’re making a "Request to Delist" that actually matters.

Lena: As we bring this to a close, I keep thinking about that "Request to Delist" button . Even if the digital terminal says "no," our hearts can still say "yes." We don't have to wait for permission from the market to reclaim our own humanity.

Miles: It’s a powerful thought. The "You, Inc." model is all about "market legibility," but the most beautiful parts of being human are often the most "illegible." They’re the things that don't fit on a spreadsheet and can't be traded on an exchange .

Lena: We’ve covered a lot today—from the ancient soul to the "creator token" gold rush, and the "invisible ticker" that tries to price our every move. But the core takeaway is simple: you are more than your data. You are more than your "identity." You are a soul with a capacity for "comprehension" that no machine can ever replicate .

Miles: So, to everyone listening, we want to leave you with a question: what is one thing you can do today that will never enter a database? What is one moment of "stillness" you can protect from the "restless" demands of your digital profile?

Lena: It could be a quiet walk, a private conversation, or just sitting still and letting your thoughts be yours and yours alone. Whatever it is, cherish it. It’s the most radical thing you can do.

Miles: Thanks so much for joining us on this journey through the "You, Inc." world. It’s been a fascinating, and hopefully clarifying, exploration.

Lena: We really appreciate your time and your attention—the real kind, not the "economic" kind. Take some time to reflect on what we’ve discussed today, and maybe try to "delist" your heart for a little while.

Miles: Take care of yourselves—and your souls.

Lena: Goodbye for now.