Any proof/source for that?
Also, does anyone ever have the real need to think about bendiness of bananas in the first place?
Only conversations with friends who worked on the file. Departments like Industry Canada consult with the various industry categories, trade associations, individual companies, etc., whenever regulations are entered into, it is just standard operating procedure. Who else would they be making the rules for? If 48 nations are going to start trading bolts, nuts and washers with each other, they need to be making compatible products. Doing that efficiently is primarily of value to the producers/buyers in that industry, a priori government doesn't care and has no inherent interest in making arbitrary rules, but arranging these things internationally are most easily accomplished by the government departments set up to do exactly that, since the channels of communication are there for that purpose.
How DO people think the world works?
I can't answer your question about banana bends, as I used it as a hypothetical anyway. (I don't know the origins of that meme, but my guess is that it was just emotional nonsense concocted to sell a newspaper or bait a click. Like a lot of things, when you dig you don't find what you originally expected.) There are standards of ground beef, lean, extra lean, etc., there are cuts of wood, 2x3, 2x4, etc., there are sizes of bolt and screw heads, Philips, Robertson, etc., the list is almost endless and there are probably new ones every day. There are grades of fruit, ok for humans, ok for baking, ok for juice, ok for cattle, ETC. And who knows, maybe there is a good reason to categorize the bendiness of bananas, and it's not at all that important than you nor I know what it is, but maybe it is important to someone. Whenever I've had to dig into any subject matter during my life, things have never turned out to be as simple as first imagined.
