We all know there is a first world and a third world. Who invented those terms, where do they come from? And... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! where the heck is the second world?????
The terms come from the cold war. The First World was the Western countries; the Second World the USSR and satellites, and the Third World the undeveloped countries which didn't fit into the first two categories.
...that's what I heard, anyway. Wikipedia has some more ideas on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World#History_of_the_term
Exactly! That's what comes to mind. @Zephyr: Thanks a lot. Well, isn't it surprising, how simple we used to divide our world? The pro's, the foes and the undecided. How many worlds would we end up with if we tried the same now?
Hmmm. Isn’t that interesting. I always thought that it was somehow related to the world being divided into: (1) The Old World (Europe) and (2) The New World (The Americas) and then the next important chunk of real estate that they couldn’t think of a name for (The 3rd. World). ------------------------------------------------------------------- “I had a rational idea this morning but I didn’t like it.”
i think it funny that by putting the USSR as 2nd world it is implied that for an undeveloped country to become capitalist it must first pass through communism, whereas marx predicted it to be the other way round
The term "third world" is no longer appropriate to use: we now call it an "undeveloped" country, or a "developing" country, or a "developed" or modern country, or perhaps a modern or semi-developed or semi-modern country. This way we avoid the implication of one country being worse in rank than the other: 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
That's real cute, but we can obviously rank countries. America is around number one, Ethiopia is like number 200. How to rank? Other than obvious economic indicators, standard of life, upwards mobility, human rights, the number of immigrants would greatly determine where a country stands. The more people who want in, the higher the rank. Economics of immigration, really.
Okay. What I should have said was that the words first, second, and third world are no longer used in textbooks or scientific journals because of the reasons I stated above. It tends to imply that one nation is superior, better, more ethnically suited, or more intelligent, etc. than another. I'm just stating the facts: not an opinion.
Though one can look at a random central african country and be absolutely certain that your country is better than theirs. Superior culturally and with infinitely better governmental structure. Any country that can claim to be able to change leaders without a civil war is already miles ahead of them. The individuals can be just as bright and sane as the rest of us but as a whole the country can be a chaotic, rabid mob.
