alt Hacker News> The law requires consent before using a cookie to store even a mundane option that was just directly modified by a user
Nope.
That's exactly why the evil cookie modals are not on the GDPR but only on the sites that want to track you and now need to ask you for your consent before doing so. That's usually exactly where good faith GDPR detractors are wrong, and that's what needs to be repeated again and again in those discussions.
You're correct that the GDPR specifically doesn't require this, but you're incorrect that "the law" doesn't—the 2004 EU ePrivacy Directive requires affirmative consent for all cookies, and it's being enforced much more strictly now in a post-GDPR world