this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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It's huge in general but varies from country to country
Just a note: I don't know what others say and what the mods prefer here, but I guess they'd agree there is no such thing as a "third world country". Let's call the continent or so and let us there be in one world :-)
As someone from a third world country living in a first world country, yeah the difference is still there and depending on where you are in the third world, it's not decreasing.
I think it's mostly the term that is being criticised. It originated from the capitalist/communist/irrelevant categorization of countries during the cold war. As such it does not actually describe much. No one would call Russia a second world country. The definition and colloquial use has diverged.
The term developing country is in my opinion much more descriptive.
Nah man there’s still third world countries for sure. Even second world is still relevant for now.
Third world country used to mean a country that wasn't on the side of either the US or the USSR during the Cold War. Not sure what it means now.
In regular parlance it very quickly came to mean countries that are very underdeveloped, with high levels of poverty, simply because this tended to map quite closely to non-alignment.
Unless you're reading something about cold war geopolitics, most use of the term takes this casual meaning, though you can usually get confirmation of what is meant from context.
I don't see it used as much as in the past.
First world countries are developed on an industrial level and a cultural level for personal liberties and democracy. The US, most of Europe, Japan, etc. are all first world countries. Second world are developed industrialy but not so democratically. China and Russia are good examples. Third world countries are those underdeveloped industrially and democratically. Most of Africa and countries in turmoil like Venezuela are good examples of third world countries.
This is how it is used colloquially (though I have never heard the term second world country), but goes contra to the actual definition of the word.
I much prefer the term developing country, because it conveys what you actually want to describe in the first place.