Our time on this Earth is limited and we can't do everything. We have to make decisions. "X is required" is shorthand for "we do not want to deal with the cons

Our time on this Earth is limited and we can't do everything. We have to make decisions. "X is required" is shorthand for "we do not want to deal with the consequences of the lack of X". It's a decision. Sure, they could, but they wouldn't have resources to deal with other things. That's basically all there is to understand here. All the rest are corollaries: - Sometimes changed circumstances require revisiting some decisions. Like COVID-19. - You can try and convince people to change their decisions. Your time to do that is limited too. Chose your battles. - Decision fatigue exists. People may not want to make new decisions and will prefer sticking to old ones or push the burden onto other people. Saying it's "imaginary" is childish. Sure, policies may be arbitrary, but the constraint of only having 24 hours in a day is not.