• Question: I've heard of 'first world countries' and 'third world countries,' but never 'second world countries.' Why do you think this is? Maybe 'second world countries' exist, but are not as widely known, just like 'first person tense' and 'third person tense' and much more widely known than 'second person tense.' Do you think that there is some sort of cruel bias against the number two in society? As my name begins with the second letter of the alphabet, this is a topic that is extremely close to my heart. Thank you.

    Asked by scienceluvr101 to Anna, Hayley, Iain, Rebecca on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Iain Bethune

      Iain Bethune answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      There are second world countries – usually Russia, China and a few others. The term made most sense in the 1980s during the cold war, and nowadays it doesn’t get mentioned much on the news as generally we hear about the best-off and the worst-off, not those in the middle.

      More commonly now we have ‘developed’ ‘developing’ and ‘underdeveloped’ countries. You will also hear about groups like the G7 or G20 (the most developed nations), the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa – developing economies, and Tiger economies (mostly small Asian countries with rapid growth from 3rd world to developed e.g. Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong).

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      I agree with Iain – those names are a bit outdated and have been replaced with different names now (which are not always much better). Luckily, I don’t think there is a cruel bias against the number two 🙂

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