Interesting, I didn't know the history of the term. However, I feel you are being pedantic. If you replace "first world" with "rich" and third world with "poo

Interesting, I didn't know the history of the term. However, I feel you are being pedantic. If you replace "first world" with "rich" and third world with "poor" then the statements make sense (though you can disagree on if they are true or not). Or am I missing something? I realize that being the US or aligned with the US has large implications in global politics, economics, etc... but that doesn't seem to invalidate the statement "The US might be come a poor country if/unless <whatever you think might make it a poor country>."