this is such a wild take to me... it's impossible to quantity at what point something becomes a net negative for society. Smoking seems to be an obvious example, because it's addictive quality inhibits a fair decision to the smoker, and it's something with a lifelong pathology.

But trampolines and mountain biking are both activities that result in ephemeral injuries. There is the rare case where a particular injury might become chronic, but how is that a drain on society, and not primarily the individual?

by your logic, should we also ban (or require insurance?) for football (hand egg), boxing, martial arts, (Tai chi?), cars, religion, guns, knives, prescription medicine, children, leaving your house at all?

edit; I'm happy to steal more ideas from sibling comments! I already stole football, but now I want to add obesity, and all mental health conditions.

I'm really curious about the context the idea of net negative comes from, but I probably should also take a stab at a conclusion; why contrast individual actions and decisions in the context of society at all? The decision to do anything should stop at 1st order, and maybe 2nd order effects. That is to say, when trying to improve society, it's fair to look down into smoking and say, we should spend attention on fixing this. But it's incorrect to look at an individual decision "should I smoke" and weight it's effects on society. (How will this effect my family, or my environment is 2nd order, and should be accounted for)

I don't know that "normal" mountain biking is any worse than cycling in general, or sports like tackle football.

A lot of the injury risk when mountain biking is reasonably easily mitigated by controlling your speed and walking the bike through terrain that's above your skill level. There was a report out of British Columbia a few months ago about injury rates, and they were high, but BC is also a major downhill trail region.

Certainly, compared to road cycling, I know more people with major injuries from being hit by cars than from crashing solo on a mountain bike. And for my own cycling injuries - a few concussions, the worst of which was on the road bike (during a race) and a few torn rotator cuffs/mild AC joint separations.

In general, "society" deciding what activities are too dangerous to routinely allow is a really nasty slope. Yes, there's some special insurance offered through private organizations for things like higher altitude mountaineering. But it's not that big a step to rule that any contact sport, for example, should require special insurance. I'm sure the insurance companies wouldn't mind.

Trampolines are indicated because YOUR home insurance could be on the hook for someone ELSE being hurt on your trampoline. And it's easy for them to exclude it.

Medical insurance generally covers your own accidents/mistakes, because it's not like you're going out searching for them for fun.

By this logic, most software engineers would also be considered high risk since they work a sedentary job and have higher risks for heart disease and obesity (which likely leads to higher healthcare costs over the long term)

Telling people they're not allowed to have fun in the manner of their choosing because it would be bad for society sounds like a great way to discourage people from caring about society.

Why should you be forced to pay insurance if you don't endanger others? Most situations where you are forced to have insurance are cases where others are endangered (eg. driving).

No? I’ve been mountain biking for over 20 years and never any broken bones or had to go to hospital as a result, despite doing downhill, trials, and dirt jumping. And I have 20 years of fitness to show for it - that’s about as positive as it gets.

There is no specific insurance required that I'm aware of... It's an activity that's well within the normal allowance of jackassery that everyone is entitled to.

I think that a big part of the issue is that banning it sounds a little like banning all sex because someone might get a venereal disease. Yeah, maybe there are some negatives, but there are also a lot of positives, and people are really like the positives.

Kids have so much joy on trampolines! I know they have dangers but net negative? Do you have data or anything?

I'm all in behind your idea: let's do the net result for society of every activity, and mandate people to do the most positive one, while banning the most negative ones!

The good thing is, then, I'll be mandated to go mountainbiking instead of staying sitted in front of a computer all day long!

How can I vote for your program?

People slip in the shower so lets stop bathing.