[greghinch]

You've obviously not tried purchasing things in a 3rd world market, such as in China

[mseebach]

You're failing to account for the fairly sizable chunk of the world that's both not the US and not the third world. Such as Germany, where people do seem to prefer physically inspecting items.

[latch]

China hasn't been a 3rd world country for some time. It isn't even close. Sure there are massive pockets of poverty (with 1 billion people, there are massive pockets of everything)...but visit India or parts of Africa if you want to see what 3rd world is.

[cglace]

If we were going by the original definitions of first world, second world third world. China would be a second world country since it was aligned with Russia and not the US.

[billforsternz]

Not really, the Russians and Chinese were both communist but were rivals rather than allies through most of the cold war.

[gaius]

There was no first and second, it's third world as in "third person". NATO, Warsaw Pact, everyone else.

[speleding]

Yes, there was a first and second world, it used to denote then Nato and USSR block respectively, that's how the third world got its name. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World

[greghinch]

I supposed you could call China not a 3rd world, but I've been to China, Nepal, and parts of Africa, and a lot of rural China looks like the poor parts of the other two. How people in poverty live in China is still quite a bit below how the impoverished live in western countries