IMO, The US has crumbling infrastructure, corrupt government, dangerous cities, and a lot of homelessness, among so many other problems. Hell, millions of people in the US don’t even have power right now.

What’s the difference?

  • WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.worldOP
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    5 months ago

    I’m not trolling, I’m genuinely asking. What doesn’t fall into the definition of a third world country?

          • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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            5 months ago

            We literally did come up with new terms after the cold war. We now say Developing and Developed nations.

            • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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              5 months ago

              Nope that was apparently too confusing, now we say global north and global south.

              It’s a much better system, see Australia in the south of the globe, is in the global north for instance. It just makes perfect sense.

        • NotNotMike@programming.dev
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          5 months ago

          I’m sorry but that’s still the meaning of the term. I know it is colloquially understood to mean a “poor” country, but we shouldn’t ignore the original intent.

          Also, please don’t tell me how my country is. I quite literally live here. I can read every article online that you can, plus I can go outside and see it for myself. We know we have problems, we aren’t ignorant to them - at least not all of us - and they’re nowhere near as bad as some commentors on this post believe they are.

        • otp@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          As a non american we 100% see america as 3rd world.

          Speak for yourself. I see it as fucked up, but definitely not third-world…

    • perviouslyiner@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago
      • 1st world = US, NATO, and their allies.
      • 2nd world = USSR, China, the Warsaw Pact, and their allies.
      • 3rd world = everyone else.

      e.g. Switzerland would be a 3rd world country by the original definition.

    • ZephrC@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Third world actually came from the cold war. There were the two major sides, but then there was a whole bunch of countries that weren’t really on either side. A whole “third world”. Of course, a lot of those countries were poor, so the term came to be associated with that, but there really isn’t a coherent definition of what it means to be a third world county. It has never really been about the standard of living for the average citizen though. More about whether a country is a bully or the bullied on the international stage, and we all know where the US falls on that spectrum.

    • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It’s a term rooted in geo-political alliances and power standings, not economic status