一 | A nearly 4,000-words long essay published in the peer-reviewed journal Qualitative Research in April has recently attracted quite a bit of attention and scrutiny after going viral on Twitter.,The paper is authored by Karl Andersson, a PhD student at the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at The University of Manchester, and is titled “I am not alone – we are all alone: Using masturbation as an ethnographic method in research on shota subculture in Japan”, with “shota” being defined by the author himself as a “Japanese genre of self-published erotic comics that features young boy characters.”,“In this research note, I will recount how I set up an experimental method of masturbating to shota comics, and how this participant observation of my own desire not only gave me a more embodied understanding of the topic for my research but also made me think about loneliness and ways to combat it as driving forces of the culture of self-published erotic comics,” Andersson wrote.,According to Vice News, the essay essentially amounts to the description of the author’s “masturbation habits” and thoughts and feelings while reading the comics in question, as well as “defenses of all of the above as legitimate research.”,Lots of generative discussion on this new piece of research at #ASA2022. pic.twitter.com/DZ7bEY9Akq— Tim Gill (@timgill924) August 9, 2022,As the paper got more and more attention online, many sociologists and researchers decried it as “deeply problematic, embarrassing, and even dangerous to the field”, with some even initially suspecting that it was a joke, the media outlet notes.,“While sexuality researchers have written about masturbation, this is the first I have heard of masturbation as a methodology, let alone masturbation to depictions of children,” Andrea Becker, postdoctoral research fellow studying sexual and reproductive health at the University of California, San Francisco, told Vice. “It is a misrepresentation of qualitative work, of sociology, and of sexualities research.”,Justin Gutzwa, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Utah who researches gender, sexuality, and transphobia in education, also wondered aloud “what was the review process for this article like”.,“I’m mystified that any reviewer would pass off on this as an exemplar of innovative ethnographic methods, let alone an acceptable, appropriate, or ethical piece of writing,” he remarked.,Qualitative Research has announced that they launched an investigation into the publication on 9 August.,The media outlet also points out that Andersson’s fascination with “shota” appears to be well-documented, and that this particular genre is actually illegal in the UK – where he “goes to school” – as well as in several other countries.。 FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried believed in utilitarianism and thought rules against lying or stealing inhibited his ability to maximize the greatest benefit for the most people, his former girlfriend and co-worker testified Wednesday at his federal fraud trial."He didn't think rules like 'don't lie' or 'don't steal' fit into that framework," Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried's on-again, off-again girlfriend, said.She said Bankman-Fried's belief caused her to accept behavior she recognized as wrong."I think it made me more willing to do things like lie or steal over time. When I started working at Alameda, I don't think I would have believed if you told me I would be sending false balance sheets or taking customer money," Ellison, who served as CEO of Alameda Research, said. "Over time it became something I was more comfortable with."Bankman-Fried faces seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering centered on his alleged use of customer deposits on the crypto trading platform FTX to cover losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and to buy lavish real estate, among other personal expenses.On the witness stand for a second day Wednesday, Ellison walked the jury through Alameda balance sheets which, by October 2022, showed Bankman-Fried's private hedge fund owed FTX customers nearly $14 billion."We had a lot of risk on and we owed a lot of money to FTX customers," Ellison said. "We had no way to repay it."She said Bankman-Fried thought about trying to raise money from Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, or by selling shares in FTX, which would collapse in bankruptcy the following month, in November 2022."I was in a state of dread. I was thinking, worrying, imagining every day what would happen if people tried to withdraw too much money at one time," she said. "I was imagining all the FTX customers who we worked with who would get hurt by this."To shore up Alameda's precarious financial position Bankman-Fried told Ellison to repay Alameda's loans with money it borrowed surreptitiously from FTX customers, she testified Wednesday."He directed me to continue repaying Alameda's loans," Ellison said."How?" prosecutor Danielle Sassoon asked."By taking money from FTX customer funds," she replied.When Sassoon asked her if she knew it was wrong, Ellison replied, "Yeah I thought it was wrong," but continued to do it because "Sam told me to."By that point, Alameda had taken about $10 billion from FTX and Ellison said she worried its lender, Genesis, would find out."We had been borrowing increasing amounts of money from FTX customers and I didn't want Genesis to know that," Ellison said. "I didn't want Genesis or others to know that Alameda was borrowing a lot of money from FTX."Ellison said Bankman-Fried cautioned her against putting anything in writing, once telling her, "Anything we put on Slack should be something we're comfortable seeing in The New York Times."Ellison also described a "large bribe to Chinese government officials to get some of our trading accounts unlocked." Alameda had two trading accounts worth about a billion dollars on exchanges based in China, which were both frozen in 2021 as part of a Chinese government investigation into money laundering.It was a substantial amount of Alameda's trading capital at the time and Ellison accused Bankman-Fried of saying "that we should send the cryptocurrency transfers" equaling about $100 million.。
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