Amanda Askell's mental models

Their wordsBeing robustly tolerable is not a particularly valuable trait when the expected costs of failure are low, but it's an extremely valuable trait when the expected costs of failure are high.

Their wordsI think we can undervalue the property of being robustly tolerable.

Their wordsA benevolent dictatorship may seem surprisingly alluring in bad times, but any political system that enables a benevolent dictatorship also puts you at much greater risk of a malevolent one.

Their wordsFor anything we try to do, the optimal rate of failure often isn’t zero: in fact, sometimes it’s very, very far from zero.

Their wordsif you find you’re never failing, there’s a good chance you’re being too risk averse, and being too risk averse is costly.