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Comment by kamakazizuru | Hacker News Reader

I agree with pads & tampons being a great invention. Can we however please finally stop referring to "2nd and 3rd world" countries. Get on a plane - things are more similar than different in most parts of the world, stop perpetuating dated notions.

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On your last point: Having recently returned from rural africa where girls miss significant amount of school for lack of pads & tampons (still), I can't exactly agree with this sentiment.

Edit: if you care to read more or donate, check these out http://www.zanaafrica.org https://www.huruinternational.org

As an alternative to "2nd/3rd" or "developing" countries, I really like the "Four Levels of Global Income" model[0] that Hans Rosling put forth in his book Factfulness[1] (a must-read IMO).

It gives a much clearer perspective on how people live (and as you mentioned, how similarly people live across the world amongst the same income levels)

[0]: https://www.gapminder.org/topics/four-income-levels/ [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Bett...

These terms don't mean 2nd and 3rd tier countries. At least they didn't used to.

> The three-world model arose during the Cold War to define countries aligned with NATO (the First World), the Eastern Bloc (the Second World, although this term was less used), or neither (the Third World). Strictly speaking, "Third World" was a political, rather than an economic, grouping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

I actually didn't state anything about economic grouping. My point is the notion is dated - and you've illustrated that quite well with your comment. The eastern & non-aligned blocs dont exist any more & the first world has split into its own bloc-ish things, yet everyone is a lot more willing to play ball with each other than at any given time in history before.

Get on a plane? Please, I'm from a plane. Being able to live in these highly developed western countries is a massive privilege. And trust me, a lot of things you take for granted these days, say birth control pills or IUD for women, are still frowned upon and not the easiest to access in China unless you're married, despite its development in the last 20 years. And even relatives who are making good earnings still wash their dishes by hand and dry their clothes with air, restaurants and food handling have little health inspection standards unless you're at a 5 star hotel. And I'm not talking about the rural parts of China, I'm talking about some of the most developed cities.

It’s common for women in Japan to get their friends traveling abroad (to eg Taiwan or Vietnam) to bring them back eg birth control or the morning after pill. It’s expensive and typically not covered by insurance (problem 1), and extremely hard to get a prescription for because the doctor will likely be male and lecture you on how you should get married and have babies (problem 2).

When did you last visit a country where the gdp per capita is a few hundred dollars? Trust me, it’s pretty different.

2nd / 3rd world notions have nothing to do with GDP. There are plenty of countries (a lot of the middle east for example) that would have back when 2nd and 3rd world were relevant notions been considered 3rd world, these currently have some of the highest GDP (PPP Adjusted) per Capita ;)

Sure, but I responded to the comment about “getting on a plane” and discovering that all countries are so very similar.

Yes, but the parent didn't imply that the two necessarily correlate. All you showed was that developing countries can have a high GDP. Are there any countries considered first world that have a low GDP?

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