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Tangent, but it turns out terms like "third world" are no longer accurate. If memory serves, this is explained in the book Factfulness. A highly recommended rea
by frederikvs 4y ago
Tangent, but it turns out terms like "third world" are no longer accurate. If memory serves, this is explained in the book Factfulness. A highly recommended read, by the way.
A few decades ago, there was a group of wealthy countries, a group of poor countries, and a large gap between them. Back then it made sense to see them as 2 separate groups, first world and third. Right now however, they're no longer separate groups - there's a continuous spectrum. A growing number of countries have been crawling out of poverty.
Some countries are rich, some are poor, and some are in between. They're no longer separate groups.
(This of course does not mean that there isn't a poverty problem in the world. Just that "third world" no longer accurately describes the situation.)
- strangeattractr 4y agoWeren't the terms used to connote alliance with the US (first world) or the USSR (second world) and third world meant non-aligned?
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoso, the poster is wrong on the specifics but correct on the general idea that the term third world no longer makes much sense.
- frederikvs 4y agoI stand corrected, thank you! To clarify, I misremembered Factfulness. The book actually talks about "developed" versus "developing". In my memory I jumbled that up with "third world".
- helge9210 4y agoFirst world -- NATO member states Second world -- Warsaw Pact member states Third world -- all other states
- b112 4y agoSome dude coined these terms, and they caught on for a while during the cold war. Third world typically being of little interest to first and second, and often poor. So eventually "third world" came to just mean "poor countries". After all, there has now been as much time, post WWII, without the cold war, as there was with one!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- midasuni 4y agoWhich would make Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, Japan etc third world. That’s not how the term is used.
- jdenning 4y agoI think you're wrong about this -- as I understood it, the term is a relic of the cold war. "First World" nations were aligned with the US, "Second World" were communist or communist-aligned, and "Third World" were not associated with either. After the collapse of the USSR "Third World" became primarily associated with impoverished nations.
- DonHopkins 4y agoAnd Trump was trying to convert the US into a "second world" nation.