b) if the benefit of masks is one fucking life, then yeah, stop bitching about it and mask up
This type of reasoning is a fallacy.
Literally the world is full of things that we could do differently that would save 'one effing life' and we don't do those things.
In fact, there are a lot of things that we could do differently that would save far more lives.
- We could make tobacco products illegal.
- We could ban sales of alcohol.
- We could institute 25 mph speed limits on all public roads.
- We could ban drive-through restaurants (or some other ban targeted at fast food products).
The biggest killers in the US are heart disease, cancer, accidents, and chronic respiratory diseases.
Banning tobacco would take a big step out of heart disease, cancer, and respiratory diseases, and lower death rates by those causes. Banning fast food or otherwise forcing Americans into a healthier diet would help considerably with heart disease and diabetes and obesity, and lower death rates by those causes. Motor vehicle fatalities are around 35K annually--I'll bet you could drop that 50% by mandating a 25 mph speed limit coast to coast.
We don't do these things because there's a balancing test between freedom, cost, efficiency, and safety.
We wore masks to protect the vulnerable. Now the vulnerable have access to vaccines which are FAR more effective than masks to protect them. So why do we still need the masks?