By Steve Watkins, ADVANCE EDITOR
A few days ago I did a Don Draper and announced that The FXBG Advance will no longer take money from data centers or anyone who represents them. The post was headlined FXBG Advance Retreating on Data Centers, and you might want to pause here and read it if you haven’t already.
After explaining why we made the decision, I pivoted to the broader issue of funding, and wrote,
THE ADVANCE still needs money—
—to stay in operation, minus the corporate sponsors, who despite what they promise, always want, and always get, their pound of flesh.
I felt good for a couple of hours—clever, virtuous, though on the likely road to bankruptcy—until a short email showed up in my inbox from a certain cousin-in-law and friend who happens to be Jewish:
“to stay in operation, minus the corporate sponsors, who despite what they promise, always want, and always get, their pound of flesh.”
I am not one to see antisemitic invective frequently, but...
I was floored, but responded immediately by seeking reassurance from my wife Janet and my friend Kirk (who’s also Jewish) that I’m a decent human being, anything but anti-Semitic, and besides, isn’t “pound of flesh” a common idiom so no big deal?
They agreed, then asked if I knew where the expression came from. I answered, though maybe not in these exact words, “Well, now that I think about it, the Jewish money-lender Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, described by another character in Act IV, Scene 1 as ‘A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch uncapable of pity, void and empty from any dram of mercy.’”
To which they replied, “Oh.”
I wrote back to my cousin-in-law:
Interesting. I’ve always heard it used as a generic term. From Merchant of Venice, and Shylock, but in broader contexts not usually considered offensive in that way. Clearly you see it differently. Have you any suggestions?
To which he colorfully replied:
No worries.
I asked AI (since we want to support regional power use at data centers, right?):
The phrase “pound of flesh” is a literary idiom that comes from William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice. In the play, the Jewish moneylender Shylock demands a literal pound of flesh from a Christian debtor who cannot repay his loan. Because the idiom directly originates from a famous character who has historically been viewed as an antisemitic caricature, using it can sometimes carry undertones of antisemitic tropes—specifically those related to greed, ruthless financial dealings, and malicious intent. However, whether the comment itself is antisemitic depends on context, intent, and modern usage:
Why it might not be intended as antisemitic: In modern English, “a pound of flesh” has become a very common, secular idiom used to describe anyone—regardless of background—who ruthlessly demands what they are owed, even if it causes suffering. In your example, the target is corporate sponsors (large business entities), not Jewish people.
Why it can cause concern: Because of the historical connection to Shylock, using financial or debt-related metaphors alongside phrases rooted in anti-Jewish literary history can inadvertently echo harmful stereotypes about secret manipulation and corporate greed.
In short, the comment targets corporate entities rather than a religious or ethnic group, so it is likely intended as a critique of corporate capitalism. However, because of the phrase’s origins, it can understandably raise red flags or feel uncomfortable to some readers.
Now [my cousin-in-law continued], if all the data centers were being built for Google and Meta, since they have Jewish founders, then I might be more sensitive. Amazon is the big kahuna around here. Bezos is not a [Jewish person]. Although he kinda looks like one of us.
It would be interesting to find out who the major investors are behind the land purchases and rezoning of the data centers in our area.
My lame suggestion since you asked: “Corporate sponsors (of data centers) always get their megawatt and pound of water.”
***
I’d say “Done and done,” but I did a deeper dive and some reading around and came across an essay on Medium by a London academic, Adam Roberts, who wasn’t inclined to let me or Shakespeare or anybody else off that easily for “a pound of flesh.”
”It’s an anti-Semitic slur, linked to the ‘blood libel,’” Roberts posted in “Shylock’s Pound of Flesh”—“the mendacious claim by which Christians justified persecuting and indeed killing Jews, because Jews allegedly killed Christian babies, drained their blood and used it to make [unleavened matzah]….
“The idea that Jews are vampires, feeding on the blood of Christians, is an ancient, wicked, though tenacious lie, one that has had ghastly material consequences for Jews in the world. The Merchant of Venice is part of that discourse. Why does Shylock insist upon his pound of flesh even when he is offered his monetary loan back with interest?”
The question answers itself.
***
Post Script
A holy-shit story this week in the New York Times. Headline: “Google Takes the A.I. Data Center Race to Outer Space.”
Drop head: “Next Thursday, Google is sending an experimental satellite into orbit that will have enough computing power to answer simple A.I. queries from space.”
From the article: “Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman and others have pledged support for orbital data centers, but the idea faces many challenges, including withstanding radiation in space and the costs of getting machines beyond the atmosphere. Yet as data centers grapple with terrestrial opposition and physical limits, having computing facilities float above Earth has become increasingly attractive.”
***
Steve Watkins is editor of The FXBG Advance.
Antisemitism is real and very dangerous. But in my view, such matters depend on how sensitive the reader is and how desirous they are to take offense as well as the intention of the user. I mean, hardly anyone today has read The Merchant of Venice, and of those, very few will recall that line. I suggest we focus on the real and intentional antisemitism being spewed almost daily by certain people and groups. I will continue to use the term "scapegoat," not because I have anything against Jews or am ignorant of its origin but because it's useful and has lost its original hateful purpose. But good people may disagree.
In reply to the post-script story: Sending data centers into space is a LOT stupider than it sounds. And every serious person involved knows this. It's just a gimmick to keep spinning the plates of their stock price.
Why is it stupid, you ask?: Yes, space is cold, but it's also empty. The vacuum acts as an insulator, there's nothing to conduct the heat away from the equipment. They would need massive radiator panels, that would themselves need to be shielded from the Sun. The whole thing is a folly being sold to the masses as a panacea.