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?
Did you figure it out yet?
Third World is an outdated term to refer to neutral countries in the cold war.
Unless there was a sudden dramatic shift in US geopolitical policy it would literally be impossible for it to be considered third world, as the very definition of third world as the definition inherently implies that the country in question is not allied with the US and the broader Western World.
Austria and Switzerland were third world, technically Yugoslavia was too. China became third world for a decent stretch after the sino-soviet split since the other half of the definition relies on not being allied with the Soviets in particular.
The use of third world as an insult for poor countries is a neo-colonial mindset that just takes for granted that anyone who isn’t an outright ally of the west or of the Russians must just be too poor to be worth considering as anything but uneducated people in dirt houses living subsistence lifestyles and who’s main interaction with an apparatus of state is occasionally seeing a humvee loaded up with the child soldiers of this warlord or that drive by.
I don’t like the government system, I don’t like the police, I don’t like anything to do with this country’s government. I just don’t like it, because… they’re sneaky, like I said - they’re deceitful, they’re lying, they’re cheats, they rip the people off. That’s the American government for you. America is a third world country, and people don’t recognise it… and I think that that’s pretty god damn sad, that they don’t recognise their own country as a third world, third rate, third class slum
Because the majority of old people are rich and there are still the echoes of a real middle class. Let’s see if Trump gets elected and everyone with the cash to do so flees his outrageous proposed tariffs.
Because of their modern and huge airforce and army, along with all the big tech companies, and Hollywood.
The PR image of America is quite nice. The reality, not that great.
Because of very high GDP per capita. It’s another discussion whether GDP is a reliable measure of economy output.
I 100% agree; the thing is they measure this stuff by the mean so a few outliers (rich districts or billionaires) make things look reasonable by number.
So it has to do with the wealth of a country?
You have fifty people in here telling you exactly why. How are you still confused?
BecUsw they don’t want an answer unless it correlates with their belief.
It’s mostly the stable government, infrastructure, currency and tech.
Pretty much why I’ve been calling the US a 2nd world country for years.
Your"IMO" aren’t opinions; those are the facts, jack
IMO, no country that primarily uses toilet paper instead of a bidet is 1st world.
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Okaymatewanker, luxury smearing is still smearing.
Yyyuck
Another Lemmy “hot take”
My guess is Lemmy skews young.
so many of these revelations and showerthoughts are pretty banal coming of age stuff.
Pretty much why I’ve been calling the US a 2nd world country for years.
FYI, “second world” means communist – or more specifically, Warsaw Pact. Only delusional MAGAs would call the US that.
The US is a 3rd world country.
The country most famous for the bidet trend is France and currently swimming in the Seine is still looking impossible. If my infrastructure is so shitty and 3rd world here at least my lakes, rivers and water ways are all clean enough for me to use.
Every country has its problems, but calling the US 3rd world is just your brain being full of straight negative propaganda. Simultaneously not every French River is unusable or every country filled with Bidets an actual mark of their progress. Go experience a country first before just talking shit.
Also, stable government?? Literally our biggest problem is that our government has been so stable that it has changed for 240 years.
Those are points.
None of them are particularly relevant or accurate, but at least you wrote them out.
The US has the clean water act - correct.
“at least my lakes, rivers and water ways are all clean enough for me to use”. - very, very wrong.
Many of your waterways are so polluted that they regularly catch fire and are linked to higher cancer rates
Then there’s “The country most famous for the bidet trend is France and currently swimming in the Seine is still looking impossible”,
which, if we
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ignore Japan
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pretend fecal matter is only unsanitary if you clean yourself with water(incorrect)
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and follow your implication that because bidets were popularized in one country, part of a single river in their country is historically dangerously polluted(incorrect),
makes as much sense as
“The country most famous for TP is the US and currently the Mississippi, Ohio River and Savannah are and will be polluted for decades to come, plus the Cuyahoga river and their drinking water catches on fire sometimes.”
How about
“If my infrastructure is so shitty”
No “ifs” about it, American infrastructure is crumbling. Your power grids regularly fail and are vulnerable because of their age, your bridges are collapsing, people can’t easily travel the country because of undeveloped mass transit, your health care system has failed its population, and you can’t house or feed even your veterans, let alone large parts of your population.
Those are all direct evidence of a critical failure in US infrastructure.
“Also, stable government??” Putting aside that your standard for stability is
“our government has been so stable that it has changed for 240 years.”(I have no idea what you’re going for here),
Your corrupt presidents, senators, congressmen, governors and citizens regularly cry out for secession and civil war, regularly attempt to defraud your electoral system and literally attempted a violent coup to overthrow your governmental seat of power just three years ago.
Trump, liable for rape and treason, constitutionally prohibited from running for president, might be re-elected, despite his admiration for and aspiration to emulate authoritarian regimes(and so many other faults).
Not the picture of stability. The picture of instability, in fact.
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Bidets are truly the line between civilization and barbarism
Done with my business!
Should I use my own hand covered by a strip of absorbent tissue paper to smear waste over my skin?
Or wash it away with water without touching my waste with my hand?
What a dilemma.
The Gucci belt
Because of their GDP. People are incredibly rich there. But one false move and there are no safety nets. You can get bankrupt in an instant.
Because the “third world” doesn’t mean what people think it means. It’s cold war terminology. First World is western aligned nations, Second World is Eastern bloc, Third World is nonaligned with the eastern or western nations. FBFW it meant nations that generally weren’t powerful or wealthy enough to be of interest to either East or West, and that poverty often meant they really had a lot of infrastructure and other problems. That’s why we’re not “Third World”, it’s a geopolitical alignment, not a quality of how we treat our citizens and infrastructure. So we’re First World even if our country is turning into a shithole in some ways.
https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1629536?v=pdf UN report from 2018 so pre-pandemic.
Because the original concept of “ordinal world country” came out of the Cold War:
- “first world” was US/Western affiliated/allied
- “second world” was USSR affiliated/allied
- ”third world” just meant “none of the above” for a very long time
However, since then, understanding of the term in popular discourse has somewhat shifted from geopolitical affiliation to a vague amalgam of socioeconomic status/GDP/“are you a pariah state”/etc.
On a less serious note: the US is really just several dozen 3rd world countries in a trenchcoat essentially relying on (but also politically backstabbing) the economic product of like 5 or 6 states that could be first world economies in their own right
Cause derp a derp a dee.
Have you ever lived in an actual third world country? Here’s some from my home country for each of your examples:
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Corruption in government is worse and more blatant than what you see in the US. You sometimes have to bribe people just to get some services done. I once had to have a police report done for an auto accident. The officer had the report typed up and they just needed to click the print button. He then said I can pay a quick process “fee” to get the report now, or come back to get the report in 3 days. It was an hour drive to the station, but I didn’t want to pay a bribe.
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Infrastructure is crumbling not just because of lack of maintenance, but because the cheapest materials are used and infrastructure is not built up to code. Every step of the process means a cut for someone’s own pockets, so you end up with a tiny amount compared to what was initially funded.
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Homeless people in the US may still have access to food banks, shelters, charities, etc. Homeless people in thrid world countries may have nothing at all.
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People lose power in the US due to catastrophies. We had random 12 hour blackouts several times a month for no reason at all. Water isn’t potable in the entire country and you have to buy water from filter stations if you want to be safe.
You’ve doctored your first two points to avoid the fact that widespread corruption and crumbling infrastructure are in fact a feature of the USA. That said, obviously we are not a ‘third world’ country, nor a ‘developing or under-developed’ country. We are, instead in our own special category of fucked. We have an absolutely giant economy, but as we have decided politically to disinvest in all of our public sectors, either by privatization or under-funding, we are rapidly becoming dysfunctional. Add to that the huge global reclaiming of surplus value from workers wages to plutocrats profits, and we are, as is obvious, in a political crisis shared by the rest of the neoliberal democracies.
Love the privilege on display
Americans want to be from a third world country so bad
Nope, my first two points did not change from my edits. I never said corruption or crumbling infrastructure isn’t widespread in the US. I just said that not only do both exist in third world countries as well, but it’s even worse.
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