How is Russia, as the founder of the Warsaw Pact, countries of which were defined as second world, belong to the First World powers, which are defined as the powers of NATO?

These are the most misused terms on earth lol.

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Definition of the First, Second and Third World.

Four Worlds
After the Second World War, the world split into two major geopolitical blocs and spheres of influence with conflicting political views about government and the right society.

First World
The bloc of democratic-industrialized countries within the American sphere of influence, the "First World," also known as The West.

Second World
The Eastern bloc of the communist-socialist states, where the political and economic power should come from the up to now oppressed peasants and workers.

Third World
The remaining three-quarters of the world population, countries that did not belong to either bloc, were considered "Third World."

Fourth World
The term "Fourth World" was coined in the early 1970s by Shuswap Chief George Manuel, it refers to widely unknown nations (cultural entities) of indigenous peoples, "First Nations" living within or across national state boundaries.

I'm not as optimistic on the economy. Production and higher-tier services like lawyers and programmers can operate at close to 100% capacity in spite of common sense health measures, but other industries cannot. Simply put, bars, clubs, events, tourism and hospitality are all royally fucked. The loss of income and jobs from these sectors will have ripple effects across the rest of the economy. And god forbid if the surging unemployment and financial strain causes a housing or credit card bubble to burst, triggering a new financial crisis.

The decisive point, however, is that letting the coronavirus spread unchecked would also lead to a situation where bars/tourism/hospitality go down the drain, just with a big death toll on top. And retail might suffer even more if we let the virus spread unchecked than in the "wear masks while shopping until we have a vaccine"-scenario.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 14 2020 12:22pm

You're right, but since the end of the cold war, the term "first world" has become synonymous with all of the wealthy, industrialized countries of the world, while "third world" has become synonymous with "poor, underdeveloped countries of the global south".

Yes, many of those are fucked for the time being and "almost 100%" is clearly an exaggeration. Again, if people acted responsibly in May/June, we wouldn't even be in this situation.

I'm not convinced that tourism is fucked. The issue there is that people are spooked.

The purpose of science is to predict the future. Im hard pressed to think of a time when you have predicted anything correctly policy wise.

Don't set yourself up like that...

I think one thing people overlook is that we are one of the most obese countries on earth and we have some of the highest vitamin d3 deficiency rates. Because of this and a lower IQ than europe we will never have the success seen in europe and asia.

California is proof of this because they were essentially 100% closed but still had worse results than places like florida and texas.

We need citizen beatdown crews who just fuck people up with baseball bats who aren't wearing masks, to be honest about it. No more endless arguments about science and liberty with idiots. Just beat those fuckers down.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Jul 14 2020 01:49pm

I agree that we are very unhealthy which is why we need to be even more careful. I could forgive the slower rate of decline in America but the sudden uptick is disgraceful. California WAS doing well but the governor caved too early and as of yesterday, he brought out the ban hammer. As I said before, if we want bars and restaurants to survive, cities need to shut down streets/sections of parking lots and allow bars/restaurants to have outdoor experiences.

What?