system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Spider silk was, until recently, the strongest known natural material known to man. How is it that spider silk is stronger than something like a turtle's shell or a ram's horns?
gpt
Strong is relative.  Cement is strong, unless you pull on it; steel is strong, when being pulled on, but isn't so great when force is applied in certain axis.  Cement has incredible *compressive* strength, steel has great *tensile* strength.

When they discuss spider silk as being "strong", what they are really saying is that it's the strongest naturally occurring tensile material (at the time), meaning that it can support many times more weight than something like a steel cable of the same mass and length.  A turtle shell or ram's horns have better sheer and compressive strength - they resist being compressed and are rigid, and don't break under specific levels of force.

But don't confuse hardness with strength - a turtle's shell may be hard, in that it has little give, but not be very strong, while steel is relatively soft (in that it deforms easily, but has great tensile strength when under load.