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 Originally Posted by wufwugy
It gets to this question: how do you valuate a refrigerator in an absolute sense?
Thermodynamics.
Seriously, though.
The benefits of having a fridge will vary widely based on geography and food availability.
Your greater point is good, though. People want to have roughly commensurate stuff as the people near them. All of which is ambiguously defined.
Value is by and large determined on an individual basis, but all those individual choices add up to a societal norm.
The value of the norm is probably moot. The existence of norms is all that matters, the specifics of those norms is unimportant.
I.e. if people shunned refrigerators in favor of personal, indoor greenhouses which produce fresh food on a regular basis without the need for cold storage, that could probably work out just fine. People just need to commit to it and develop the societal norms which support it.
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