The USDA claims that in the case of hard cheese, it is sufficient to trim 1 inch from the mold:

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/a87cdc2c-6ddd-49f0...

As far as I understand there are no pathogenic moulds that will grow on hard cheese (it is too acidic). Just to be clear, this is not the case for soft cheeses (camembert, brie, some blue cheeses, really soft washed rind cheeses, etc), though. If that starts to go off, throw it out. The pH can get up all the way to 7 on those cheeses, so they aren't safe.

I’ve lived my whole life breaking this advice. No ill effects yet!

Me too, more often in my student days rather than recent past though.

If I found mould on my cheese I'd just slice it off, and eat the rest. (Though now I think about it, if I saw bread with mould on it I'd throw the whole loaf away.)

I agree, the bread-type mold must be different from the cheese-type. Maybe the loose structure of the bread makes it easy for the mold to spread thin and quick through the air gaps, while in cheese it propagates more slowly.

Idk, but if there's mold on one part of the loaf the whole thing smells funky.

Hard cheeses are acidic (usually around a pH of 5) and salty. There are only a few types of mould that will grow on it. Lots of cheese producers grow wild mould on the rind of the cheese and it is perfectly edible.

What?

Cheese is already off milk, many have added mold, its a feature.

They have specific varieties of added mold, such as particular Penicillium species, that don't produce chemicals that make you sick. Plenty of other molds have the potential to be bad if you ingest their output.