[blizkreeg]

This is a mild suggestion. Could we stop using the term 3rd world to refer to relatively poor countries? I think in a modern, globalized, and rapidly developing world, '3rd world' is unnecessary and carries a derogatory connotation to it, IMO. I can't speak for others from a so-called third world country, but it offends me.

Plus, the true meaning of third world is something quite different, concocted during the cold war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

[raju]

My apologies. You are right. I will certainly refrain from using that phrase now on. It is a little ironic that I don't use that phrase in normal conversation, but that I used it today in my comment.

Thank you for your astute observation and comment

[mkramlich]

I think "developing world" is the new PC way of saying it. The fashionable term changes every decade it seems.

[seven]

Love those moments, when I learn that I used a term without knowing sh*t about the original meaning. I will for sure change my use of it.

[x] learned something new today

[SkyMarshal]

How about 'developing world' instead? Any other suggestions?

[kroger]

It's not so simple as 'developed world' vs 'developing world'. There's an awesome Hans Rosling ted talk [1] about that. Here's an quote from it:

"I find my experience from 20 years of Africa is that the seemingly impossible is possible. Africa has not done bad. In 50 years they've gone from a pre-Medieval situation to a very decent 100-year-ago Europe, with a functioning nation and state. I would say that sub-Saharan Africa has done best in the world during the last 50 years. Because we don't consider where they came from. It's this stupid concept of developing countries which puts us, Argentina and Mozambique together 50 years ago, and says that Mozambique did worse. We have to know a little more about the world. I have a neighbor who knows 200 types of wine. He knows everything. He knows the name of the grape, the temperature and everything. I only know two types of wine -- red and white. (Laughter) But my neighbor only knows two types of countries -- industrialized and developing. And I know 200, I know about the small data. But you can do that."

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_o...

[metamemetics]

>It's not so simple as 'developed world' vs 'developing world'

Of course. These are just useful categories. Humans like to put things into categories so we can make statements about ideas. Saying it's "not so simple" is a strawman as I don't think anyone is claiming that a country is a data structure with the capacity of 1 bit (developed or developing).

Maybe if you said or quoted something about how the act of using this categorical construction in analysis when performed too often is the physical cause of some sort of injustice.

[loewenskind]

Are you even from a developing country?