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PaperclipPerfector  29d ago (text post)   3035 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 23, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Can someone give me a steelman of the popular pro-Lindsay Clancey argument? I’m not really talking about the defense, whose argument is a complex justification for why she medically and legally qualifies for the insanity defense. I’m more asking about the people online arguing that she is a victim and her being prosecuted/this situation is an example of sexism. My wife told me about the case and is very anti Clancey. ChatGPT also gave what I felt is an unsatisfactory steelman. I don’t have a theory of mind for her supporters, and wish to rectify that.

This is up there with trying to steelman Jeffrey Dahmer, but I'll give it a go.

Children are exasperating. Their screams are annoying. And it is generally women who are more attuned to their whines and screams than husbands who develop a magical ability to tune it out. Every mom can sympathize with the sense of frustration and frazzled nerves from having three children and a husband who isn't pulling his weight. So it's not about this CASE per se, it's about feeling heard in their own relationships.

And the Clancey supporters are probably not exposed to any actual information about the case. They probably hear she was denied ESSENTIAL MEDICAL CARE, and just snapped and just killed her kids in a frenzy or something. They don't really think about that aspect. They don't know that she planned the crime on Google, sent her husband on an errand, and then systemically killed each child in turn, even pausing to take a phone call from her husband in the middle. That's just outside their filter bubble.

In any case, letting one killer out is a small price to pay for a greater AWARENESS of WOMEN'S EMOTIONAL LABOR. And how sure are we that she even did this crime. Aren't most crimes perpetrated by men. Her husband was recently seen dating another women. Maybe he was the one who did it after all.

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