Surely it is a 'Developed World' problem?

[AtYourCervix]

Not 'First World'.

'Third World' being terribly non-P.C.

Surely First World is equally offensive?

The north/south line was very squigly, australia and new zealand were in it but I don't think South America or South Africa were iirc.

Oh, no, wasn't criticising the wording, just don't know what it means!

I still don't understand TBH.

I dislike developing/developed more - it is almost like there is some standard and one has attained it the other aspires to it ...

Third World is a pretty universally used, inoffensive term for me describing the economic/political/social situation of a country.

'developed world' problems - surely not any.

No idea what a third world country is but understand more developing countries.

Sorry, meant 0.8, not 8.

I think life expectancy and years spent in education come into it somewhere.

Disclaimer: I gave up geography when I was 13!

Of course it relates to riches. name me one third world/developing country that is richer in any way than a first world/developed country.

The thing is, re the North/South distinction - in an attempt to be über-PC, the result has been Imperialism of the most outdated kind.

Besides, it doesn't even work. NZ is as far south as you can go, bar Antarctica, so it's a massive blip of the line.

And I really think countries like Indonesia, Brazil, Chile and Argentina, to name a few, would have something to say about it.

Honestly - I cann't believe someone would come up with it, as a way of being more PC. It's so, 'oh, those piddling little inconsequential countries down there, below the equator'.

There's probably no way to make the distinction without offending someone!

Ooof. It's a minefield.

So...

Developing sounds like you are labellling them neanderthals.

First is obviously a better place to be than second or third.

Economically richer? Economically poorer?

Then you aren't criticising how nice they are. Just the money bit.

Personal happiness Kobiashi?

Third World (Noun)

1. The Underdeveloped countries of the world, especially those with widespread poverty 2)A Group of nations, especially in Africa and Asia that do not align themselves with the policies of either the US of Soviet Union (Soviet Union was also know as the 2nd world)

There are also 4th world countries with are:

The worlds most poverty stricken countries raked by very low GDP and high dependency on foreign aid.

Ok. LRD. The money isn't the overriding factor but is there.

shrugs I don't work in the field, and don't have any particularly strong preference towards any of the phrases - they all can be seen as a bit insulting in different ways.

I don't know how common 'global north' and 'global south' are outside academia or even my particular bunch of lecturers. I only took the 'hippy-lefty' units about decolonisation, or migration and ethnicity etc. so for all I know the people taking the more traditional units like political ecomomy or security studies might have been told to use different terminology.

In my work we have Economically Developed Countries and Lower Economically Developed Countries...

Personal happiness is hard to achieve living on a dollar a day, or scavenging from a dump etc.....

But why should being 'Economically Developed' be 'first'?

Surely the whole being happy and fulfilled and spiritually balanced matters equally.

And where is this utopia I seek, where there is economical stability, good vibes and happy people?

There was a political movement element to the term 3rd world. Countries actively embraced the term as counter to the whole western capitalist blahdiblah thing. The term is also owned by 3rd word countries. Developing world on the other hand focuses on economics, so locates the 'developing world' as inferior as it frames the way they're assessed in economics, a way that favours the capitalist west. Developing world is pretty unpc for that reason.

Is it Bhutan where they measure happiness instead of GDP? I think I'd like to live there. Plus, I really like mountains and meadows.

I also remember doing a project about Uruguay and th

I've always taken aspiration into account. So it includes UK/USA as everyone wants to be part of it.

Middling successful countries are like nearly there and not quite.

Then you have randoms like some African and Latin which suddenly are doing quite well /cooler for business input

Finally there are those who are still basic, deserts famine struggle and such.

I really don't think three or even four is enough either way

thinking I'd like to live there.

Maybe they should just be called trivial problems which would remove the assumption that if you are from a 3rd world/developing/low GDP country then all you think about is disease and deprivation.

Atyour. The developed countries were the " first" to reach the state of a first world country.

The phrase first world and third works have nothing to do with one being better then the other, just at different stages of development ( that's what I meant LRD).

wasn't there also a bit about the third world being proud of being the third world because they'd deliberatly stayed out of the whole 1st world-2nd world cold war capitalist/marxist row?

To the mix I'll add, the minority world and majority world.

I think that's part of what I was referring to lafata. It resonates in the dusty annals of my mind.