4 ms·

This might be a grammatical error, but the USA is not currently a third world country by any stretch of the imagination.

by gtcode 9y ago

bobwaycott 9y ago
thatfrenchguy didn’t say it is. He said it will be, using makes to indicate the future. There’s no grammatical error here, just a grammatical misunderstanding.
mirimir 9y ago
It's heading that way :( And OK, maybe "third world country" isn't really the best term. But what it's heading toward looks a lot like mexico, for example, with a small ultra-wealthy elite, and dysfunctionality for the rest.
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  For it to head that way, in my experience, you need people to start being incompetent and not caring at all levels of society. A slant towards stupid bureaucracy and paperwork will help too. The US is so, so, incredibly far from remotely getting to that level.
- katastic 9y ago
  Yep. ONE wrong president and the entire system comes crashing down. We'll all be dead before we can elect another guy. If the world is over, why are you still showing up to work?
  - lghh 9y ago
    Nobody suggested that we'd all be dead or that the world would be over. In fact, talking about the decline of a country probably means that they expect people to be alive in that country to experience it.
  - thatfrenchguy 9y ago
    People still show up at work in developing countries.
    - jgh 9y ago
      Not to mention all the not-USA developed countries...
orf 9y ago
Some parts seem to be borderline. States have infant mortality rates on par with Thailand, Romania and Fiji. Others have life expectancy on par with Brazil, The Lebanon and Sri Lanka. Transparency International rates the corruption index of the USA only slightly higher than Uruguay (no breakdown by state unfortunately, and still quite high overall in developed world to be fair). Obviously America is a huge place and one size does not fit all, but there are some rural areas that wouldn't seem out of place in a third world country for sure.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  The state of Texas has a poor country's maternal health outcome on average. From 2016, and bound to be worse now as the 2017 legislative session seemed to concentrate on transgender bathroom laws/laws against urban areas having their own laws. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2016/09/10/texas-maternal-mortality-rate/90115960/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2016/09/10/texas-...
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  >States have infant mortality rates on par with Thailand, Romania and Fiji The reason for this is we are more liberal in what we define as an infant as compared to a fetus.
saalweachter 9y ago
Definitionally, no, although that question becomes interesting for a different reason. The first world was "countries allied with the US against the godless Commies", the second world was "the godless Commies", and the third world was "everyone else, where we fight the proxy wars between the first and second worlds, for the soul of mankind". Second world no longer really means anything since the collapse of the Soviet Union, of course, and first/third world has become a euphemism for "ok/shitty country". By the old definitions, the US falling out of the third world becomes much more interesting.
- marcus_holmes 9y ago
  hmm, that's not the definition I was taught. "First World" or "Old World" meant the civilised European countries (both West and East) "Second World" or "New World" was countries colonised by Europe, such as the USA. "Third World" meant countries still in whatever benighted state of uncivilised savagery that they had before the Europeans enlightened them. Yes, I'm being ironic. But these were the literal terms and attitude during my education (1970's UK). It was only vaguely recognised that the USA was properly part of the First World and not some uppity colony that was too big for its boots. I also learned a different definition, later, in Economics: - First World economies are based on trading information - Second World economies are manufacturing-based - Third World economies are resource-based This definition causes arguments at Australian dinner parties ;) Interesting how the terms are defined differently by different people for different reasons.
  - saalweachter 9y ago
    The ngram viewer suggests that if such a terminology was ever commonly used, it was suspiciously correlated with the Cold War: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=first+world%2Csecond+world%2Cthird+world&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=first+world%2C...
ClassyJacket 9y ago
Surely something as basic as public healthcare is a requirement? If not that, what could possibly be more important? That, and the ridiculous availability of guns to the general public, mean I definitely consider the US a third world country in the colloquial sense, even if it obviously doesn't fit an dictionary definition originally from the 80's: "Those countries not aligned with the west or the east during the Cold War."

This might be a grammatical error, but the USA is not currently a third world country by any stretch of the imagination.

by gtcode 9y ago

This might be a grammatical error, but the USA is not currently a third world country by any stretch of the imagination.

bobwaycott 9y ago

thatfrenchguy didn’t say it is. He said it will be, using makes to indicate the future. There’s no grammatical error here, just a grammatical misunderstanding.

mirimir 9y ago

It's heading that way :( And OK, maybe "third world country" isn't really the best term. But what it's heading toward looks a lot like mexico, for example, with a small ultra-wealthy elite, and dysfunctionality for the rest.

MichaelGG 9y ago
For it to head that way, in my experience, you need people to start being incompetent and not caring at all levels of society. A slant towards stupid bureaucracy and paperwork will help too. The US is so, so, incredibly far from remotely getting to that level.
katastic 9y ago
Yep. ONE wrong president and the entire system comes crashing down. We'll all be dead before we can elect another guy. If the world is over, why are you still showing up to work?
- lghh 9y ago
  Nobody suggested that we'd all be dead or that the world would be over. In fact, talking about the decline of a country probably means that they expect people to be alive in that country to experience it.
- thatfrenchguy 9y ago
  People still show up at work in developing countries.
  - jgh 9y ago
    Not to mention all the not-USA developed countries...

orf 9y ago

Some parts seem to be borderline. States have infant mortality rates on par with Thailand, Romania and Fiji. Others have life expectancy on par with Brazil, The Lebanon and Sri Lanka. Transparency International rates the corruption index of the USA only slightly higher than Uruguay (no breakdown by state unfortunately, and still quite high overall in developed world to be fair). Obviously America is a huge place and one size does not fit all, but there are some rural areas that wouldn't seem out of place in a third world country for sure.

stevenwoo 9y ago
The state of Texas has a poor country's maternal health outcome on average. From 2016, and bound to be worse now as the 2017 legislative session seemed to concentrate on transgender bathroom laws/laws against urban areas having their own laws. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2016/09/10/texas-maternal-mortality-rate/90115960/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2016/09/10/texas-...
KekDemaga 9y ago
>States have infant mortality rates on par with Thailand, Romania and Fiji The reason for this is we are more liberal in what we define as an infant as compared to a fetus.

saalweachter 9y ago

Definitionally, no, although that question becomes interesting for a different reason. The first world was "countries allied with the US against the godless Commies", the second world was "the godless Commies", and the third world was "everyone else, where we fight the proxy wars between the first and second worlds, for the soul of mankind". Second world no longer really means anything since the collapse of the Soviet Union, of course, and first/third world has become a euphemism for "ok/shitty country". By the old definitions, the US falling out of the third world becomes much more interesting.

marcus_holmes 9y ago
hmm, that's not the definition I was taught. "First World" or "Old World" meant the civilised European countries (both West and East) "Second World" or "New World" was countries colonised by Europe, such as the USA. "Third World" meant countries still in whatever benighted state of uncivilised savagery that they had before the Europeans enlightened them. Yes, I'm being ironic. But these were the literal terms and attitude during my education (1970's UK). It was only vaguely recognised that the USA was properly part of the First World and not some uppity colony that was too big for its boots. I also learned a different definition, later, in Economics: - First World economies are based on trading information - Second World economies are manufacturing-based - Third World economies are resource-based This definition causes arguments at Australian dinner parties ;) Interesting how the terms are defined differently by different people for different reasons.
- saalweachter 9y ago
  The ngram viewer suggests that if such a terminology was ever commonly used, it was suspiciously correlated with the Cold War: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=first+world%2Csecond+world%2Cthird+world&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=first+world%2C...

ClassyJacket 9y ago

Surely something as basic as public healthcare is a requirement? If not that, what could possibly be more important? That, and the ridiculous availability of guns to the general public, mean I definitely consider the US a third world country in the colloquial sense, even if it obviously doesn't fit an dictionary definition originally from the 80's: "Those countries not aligned with the west or the east during the Cold War."