FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

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First World Problems:

Stupid problems we have that do not affect our/others’ lives in any major way. Compared to third world problems, our problems don't mean shit.

- Urban Dictionary

Related:

White Whine:

A complaint made by an overprivileged white person.

- Urban Dictionary

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In prepping the item below, I started wondering: If there are First World problems, which are compared to Third World problems, what is the Second World and how did those concepts come about?

Here are the answers . . .

The terms "First World", "Second World", and "Third World" were originally used to divide the world's nations into three categories.

After World War II, the world split into two large geopolitical blocs, separating into spheres of communism and capitalism. This led to the Cold War and the dominance of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, competing for ultimate global supremacy. They created two camps, known as blocs, which incorporated like countries and satellites, and these blocs formed the basis of the concepts of the First World and Second World.

The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO (the Western bloc) or the Warsaw Pact (the Eastern bloc). The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the "First World", while the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and their allies represented the "Second World".

Strictly speaking, "Third World" was a political, rather than an economic, grouping. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term Third World has decreased in use. It is being replaced with terms such as developing countries and least developed countries.

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