this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2025
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It's confusing what you mean, because while "is first world" has come to mean "is a developed nation" for some reason, "used to be a first world" ambiguously summons the prior definition of the word, "an ally of the United States in the cold war." Ideally this problematic phrase should be avoided.
You're probably right, but "was a developed nation" seems confusing it it's own way, given that the definition of "developed" is pretty starkly different across times (there is no country left in the world with infant mortality as bad as best performer US in 1900, for example). In long form, it was at the same level as familiar W.E.I.R.D countries like the US, New Zealand and France, and then later fell behind.
Three worlds wasn't a great classification system when it was first devised, even. First world and second world made sense, lumping everything else into one category was pretty eurocentric and dismissive.
It wasn't a classification, it was a declaration. It was what side you were on in the Cold War.