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Re:Ask HN: Is masking indoors like buying insurance for your... by amichail on Tuesday September 02, 2025 @11:03AM (#45104034)
How is this different from buying home insurance?
Re:Ask HN: Is masking indoors like buying insurance for your... by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday September 02, 2025 @11:38AM (#45104508)
Most people have a mortgage that requires them to buy home insurance. They don't have the choice.

But even if they don't have a mortgage, it's still a completely different tradeoff. You can't use "people get home insurance" to draw conclusions on "people should mask indoors". Different risks, different costs, different tradeoff.

Re:Ask HN: Is masking indoors like buying insurance for your... by onecommentman on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @12:28AM (#45112249)
You buy home insurance by writing a check once a year. No impact on how you live your life every minute of your waking life. And I can choose to self-insure if I don’t have a mortgage…no mandate.

Masking affects every minute of your waking life, and those you physically interact with. That every-second transaction cost is too high for most, unless immunocompromised. Only ill-conceived mandates make it otherwise, and almost everyone hated them.

Using wheelchairs would prevent falls for young, healthy, normally abled people. The nuisance factor, efficiency, etc., though, imposes too high a cost for the marginal gain from reduced fall injuries.