4 ms·

>Third world Non-aligned countries didn't exist? Sorry I need some coffee and I'm feeling a little thick at the moment.

• oersted 5mo ago
  Is that the meaning of “Third World”? As in East/West/Other? I always thought it was more about Developed/Developing/Undeveloped, mostly in terms of the industrial transition. But, if we are being honest, it’s used a lot more as “third class”. I suppose indeed that it is not really a well defined “thing”, like the Silk Road.
  • mandevil 5mo ago
    When originally coined (circa 1950 around the Korean War), the First World was the US aligned block of countries, the Second World was the USSR aligned block of countries, and the Third World was all of the countries not part of either. Egypt, India, Yugoslavia, Ghana and Indonesia viewed themselves as leaders of the broader political movement during the 1960's and 1970's. Even into the 1960's there were few industrialized nations outside of those two main blocks, so "Third World" quickly lost its explicitly political meaning and became more a description of the level of capital investment and worker productivity.
• usrnm 5mo ago
  They did exist the same way people and goods did travel across Eurasia, but it wasn't some defined political or economical entity and they did not call themselves "the third world"
  • lamasery 5mo ago
    Unlike "the Silk Road" or "the Middle Ages", "third world" was a term in contemporary use at the time it applies to, including among non-aligned states and NGOs that worked on third world cooperation. It was pretty well-defined as political classifications go, and people involved in actual "entities" related to it were aware of and sometimes used the term.