NationStates Jolt Archive

You are probably wondering, where did these terms come from? I'd assume that, you like I once did, assumed that they were related to economic issues and the like. The first world was better off, richer, more powerful, whilst the third world was poorer and such. Well that's not where the terms came from at all!

Way back, long time ago, during the cold war, the nations we now know as the "third world" began to attempt to congeal into a something as capable as the US and the USSR. So, during this time, people began to refer to them as the third world, the US as the first world and the USSR as the second world.

Origin of a phrase!

Actually, "Second World" includes other communist countries, like China, Cuba, and Vietnam.

China is not a third-world country, that is.

Well, I guess first-world countries generally tend to be more capitalist and wealthy, while third-world countries tend to be more communist or poor...so I suppose second-world countries are communist countries with strong economies (the equivalent of a Psychotic Dictatorship with a strong economy here on NS).

~Czardas, Supreme Ruler of the Universe

Use the link, read the lyrics.
www.lyricsdepot.com/sting-police/one-world-not-three.html

They got the lyrics wrong. In the first verse the world show should be replaced by shirk.

Don't you people have, like, geography lessons?