• dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    They’re ideological, a hangover from the cold war.

    The first world: The US, plus its allies in NATO which were mostly in Western Europe.

    The second world: Russia and the USSR, plus its sphere of influence through the Warsaw pact.

    The third world: Literally everyone else.

    So for example the underdeveloped backwards hellholes of… er, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland were all non-aligned and thus technically “third world” nations.

    • crandlecan@mander.xyz
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      2 months ago

      Fair enough. My point mostly was that for most (older) Western Europeans 3rd world is a synonym for an economic hellhole. Like, Switzerland. Fracking socialists 😤 Wait, that sounds… Wrong…? No? Anyways, it’s not just ‘poor Africans’.