A mental model is a question, not a decoration

Mental models become useless when they are collected as impressive vocabulary.

Their purpose is to improve a decision. What are the incentives? Where is the feedback loop? Which variable is compounding? What would inversion reveal? Which base rate am I ignoring?

The value is not in naming the model after the outcome. It is in using the model before the decision, when uncertainty remains and the answer can still change.

A good mental model is a portable question that makes reality harder to misread.