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I mean, he's not wrong. Regardless of its original meaning, a country shouldn't be considered developed/1st world if they don't have civil/human rights, education, healthcare, water and sanitation *throughout* the entire country.
Then not many would fit that definition. Even smaller western countries have extreme rural populations that still use well water, some without plumbing in their houses, no internet, even in areas where it would be easier to implement, compared to the massive area that is the USA. The US is 50 individual countries in a sense, and saying the entire USA is one way is idiotic. Just like saying all of India is the same or all of china is the same. It’s disingenuous to the actual situation, which is most of the USA is very comfortable and easy.
I don't think there is anything necessarily wrong with well water if it's clean. I grew up on it in Oklahoma. It was probably the only water I felt super comfortable drinking straight out the tap as the town water had a bad reputation.
Our well was regularly tested and clean.
I agree, I grew up on 40 acres in the middle of nowhere and drank well water. Now I live in a semi-big town and won’t touch the tap water unless it’s for cooking. I can taste the chemicals added to it, but I’m sensitive to that sort of thing
Ditto.
A local water softener/treatment guy told me my well water's cleaner than water in the surroundings small towns. Cleaner = fewer biological & chemical contaminants. (Our well water does have more iron in it... hence the softener.)
The big question isn't the source of the drinking water.
It's if the _vast_ majority have ready access to clean drinking water, from the sources that are supposed to provide it.
In some respects, the US is ahead of a lot of places on drinking water... But in other respects, we're not only doing a _horrible_ job, but we are, in fact, doing _worse_ over time.
Flint being an amazingly good example.
Their drinking water was safe up until they decided to try and save some money in a really bad way. And now it likely won't be safe again for a depressingly long time.
And Flint is far from the only place in the US with problems with their drinking water.
Far worse, all of these problems _could_ be solved. As a country, we _have_ the resources needed to solve them. It would, almost certainly, be _cheaper_ in the long run.
We just... Don't.
When people call America a 3rd world country they're clearly being hyperbolic. No one thinks America is the equivalent of somewhere like Sudan.
But America is also a clear step behind most of the developed world in a lot of things. Death penalty, incarceration rate, firearms deaths, homicide rate, infant mortality rate, wealth inequality, religiosity and abortion laws.
There's really two Americas, a rich and a poor one. The rich one is the most prosperous nation in history. The poor one is by most metrics a 3rd world country. Thus the meme.
The UN doesn't have a definition of "third world", and it always meant the countries that weren't either "first world" Western industrialized democracies or "second world" Soviet client states.
[https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp\_current/2014wesp\_country\_classification.pdf](https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp_current/2014wesp_country_classification.pdf)
[https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI](https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI)
US at 0.921 and 21st place worldwide.
>https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp\_current/2014wesp\_country\_classification.pdf
You linked me to a file that lists United States as "Developed Econom\[y\]".
It also doesn't provide specific criteria, nor do the broad criteria match the ones you are claiming they do.
Maybe I'm missing something. Where in this file do you see something that supports your statement?
You asked what was the UN criteria and I linked it. I also said in my original comment that according to the very definition that UN espouses a lot of the countries in their list are not developed countries. I'm not sure what's the confusion here.
so, technically it would be correct when based on what the country itself is
but the third world used to be about countries that weren't part of the western or soviet block, and the states are part of the former
it's better to call them a developing country, and it's sounds even more shit than 3rd world :troll:
As someone else pointed out, Switzerland would be a third world country if we base our definition of 1st, 2nd and 3rd world on alignment during the Cold War
I mean he isn't actually wrong on that. The USA shouldn't be considered first world because we don't have jack shit for health care and don't care about our citizens, at all XD
Just so you know America no matter its economic status is by deffinition a first world country.1st world: America, NATO, plus assorted allies2nd world: Soviet Russia, USSR and assorted allies3rd world: Everybody elseThe reason 3rd world became shorthand for poor country was because whenever a 'third world country' was in the news it was: war, famine or economic collapse.
Also more on point Japan (a first world country) doesn't have drinking water by tap, they have drinking water delivered. They have tap water for showers and washing, but because of the regular earthquakes they can't guarantee there isn't a contaminate in the pipes.
“I’ve traveled the whole world” ok so Japan, Europe, Dubai, and the US? Anyone with two eyes that’s actually visited a developing country can tell the difference… You guys laugh until you have a geopolitical crisis, then you come running back ready to worship us lmao. Enjoy your 50% tax rate and lower gdp per capita lol
Holy shit. Everyone who complains about America not being a first world country; go live in fucking Azerbaijan or Kenya for a year. See how you'll feel about the US after that. You Americans are spoiled brats.
Way to set the bar.. Yes, the USA is amazing because it's slightly better to live there than Kenya..
You showed me..
>You Americans
Anyways assuming that everyone online is from the USA.. I'll have you know that I'm from a civilized country..
It is not *slightly* better to live in the US than Kenya. It is *significantly* better.
The only reason you don't see that is because you're so far left you've gone back up your own ass.
it has nothing to do with political orientation, it's perspective. I'm further left than a no right on red sign, and I can see the obvious difference between a first-world living standard and a third-world living standard. The US isn't a bad place (which doesn't excuse its own errors) and perspective is something the country sorely needs.
It is not *slightly* better to live in the US than Kenya. It is *significantly* better.
The only reason you don't see that is because you're so far left you've gone back up your own ass.
That's not the gotcha you think it is, as you're proving his point: you're the one that used that country as a benchmark.
Want a fair conoarison? Compare it to Canada, and yes, some parts of the US don't look developed anymore.
Bro Canada so bent over backwards they selling arms to the Saudi regime and promising carbon zero while exporting millions of barrels of oil. The US does the same, of course, but no country is without flaw is my point. The takeaway should be perspective combined with a willingness to improve even what's already "good"
Many Americans have a degradation fetish. "I'm so disgusting and horrible, aren't I daddy. Literally the worst country in the whole world! Tell me how shit I am! unnnhhh"
This is why I ironically, hate discussing the United States with actual Americans. They either think their country is unable to have any flaws or that it's a third world trash heap. I've had Americans on this site say how my birthplace of Kyrgyzstan is more developed than the USA, I really want them to try living there for *one month*. They'll give up after the first time they get suffocated on a shared minivan.
blame that on Reddit, not Americans. groupthink where redditors try to appeal to the EU audience by making fun of America, etc. Most Americans have enough perspective to acknowledge their relative privilege while still wanting to improve their own country
Technically true about the historical meaning of First/Second/Third World, but I feel its use has changed since the Cold War ended and people really refer to developed countries as First World and underdeveloped countries as Third World. Either way it's obviously hyperbole/satire to call USA Third World.
But on Japan's drinking water you're just plainly wrong. Their tapwater is entirely safe to drink. I don't know where you got this info but it's completely false.
It depends on where you are in Japan. I lived in Miyako-jima for 6 month (Okinawa prefecture) and the water wasn’t safe to drink there. Everyone had bottles they refilled at a few small treatment plants around the island (and even then, the local treatment places are relatively new. Up until a decade or two ago they had to get their drinking water shipped in).
[Miyako-jima is a tiny island that has virtually no water supply. It has nothing to do with "unsafe" water, but a lack of it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_in_Miyakojima) Interesting that you lived there for 6 months and didn't know that.
It has usable tap water that is used for everything but drinking (showering, washing, etc). From what I was told by the locals the water has an extremely high mineral(?) content that wreaks havoc on one’s internal organs/digestive system if you regularly drink it. (Like “needing surgery to get sediment removed from your stomach” levels of hard water).
Also “tiny island” kind of undersells its ~50k population. It’s not massive by any means, but it’s still home to a pretty decent small/mid-sized town.
I did? A lack of water isn’t the reason people don’t drink the tap water (except, perhaps in years of drought). It’s plentiful enough (or at least was when I was there) just not potable.
I was only pointing out the population of Miyako to show that this isn’t a super tiny number of people being effected, but a pretty decent sized town.
from residents in Tokyo while in Tokyo when asking why they had water dispenser in their house. (very similar to office watercoolers. Also the TV shows i watched in japan would also reguly show water deliveries. Its not that it 'unsafe' its that with earthquakes and associated disruptions it is easyier in many places to just use tap water for washing and laundry and bottled water for drinking.
As with any other developed nation, Japan has a regulatory framework overseeing water safety which imposes strict regulations to ensure the tapwater is safe to drink. The same regulators provide assurances that the tapwater is safe to drink, for which they are legally liable.
The fact some residents you spoke to prefer to use bottled water, or that you saw a water bottle delivery on TV means precisely nothing, and your statement that 'Japan doesn't have drinking water on tap' is completely (confidently) incorrect.
>Also more on point Japan (a first world country) doesn't have drinking water by tap
Wow, a confidently incorrect within confidently incorrect. You can absolutely drink the tap water in any part of Japan I have ever been to, what are you smoking?
Weird because everywherei went to in tokyo used either bottled water or water dispensers ie water delivered it might have come out of a tap but it wasn't run through municiple pipes for drinking.
Nobody cares because thats not the actual definition of 1st/3rd world country anymore and hasnt been for a very long time. The meaning of language can change over time and clinging to it for no reason except a 'gotcha' is immature and stupid.
It's a meaningless term that has changed into nothing because nobody agrees on its meaning. Closest definition now is "3rd world means it's missing a [particular thing] I think it should have." That particular thing can be literally anything.
definition* and no, definitions can change, by common English lingo and understanding I would not, and a lot of others would not, consider the USA a 1st world country. Common and modern definitions define first world as a developed country (usually democratic) with stable economics among other things. The USA does not have a stable economy, by extension it does not have good health care, it's also not a democracy. It's a plutocracy bordering on theocracy. IDC about drinking water, and my reply didn't mention it either. lol.
Suggested reading for you: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/first-world.asp
From the website you linked
Key Takeaways
The term “first world” originally applied to countries that were aligned with the United States and other Western nations in opposition to the former Soviet Union.
First world countries are often characterized by prosperity, democracy, and stability—both political and economic.
A high literacy rate, free enterprise, and the rule of law are other common characteristics of first world countries.
Some critics argue that the concept of dividing nations into three worlds represents an antiquated perspective.
Many first world countries have certain demographics that are in extreme poverty, which is more representative of developing countries; other countries with third world status are quite prosperous.
The rest of the article is basical saying every version of 'first world' use is useless as some countries that fit don't count, but some that do don't.
So in summery the old definition that works isn't used anymore, but the new deffinitions are vague at best contradictory at worse so are pointless.
Hey, I give you kudos for actually taking the time to read it. Most wouldn't. Yeah, it's antiquated...but there really isn't a better terminology for it as of yet, afaik.
That 3% unemployment rate requirement alone knocks out just about every country you’d normally consider first world.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate
After a cursory look (you can sort by unemployment rate) Japan and South Korea are the only ones I saw that seemed left. And, speaking from my experience of having lived in Japan for a few years, if the US isn’t first world then neither is Japan.
I can't say anything about Japan as I have never lived there, other then it's definitely probably not a good place to be seeing as they have a dedicated word for suicide by working to death....
Yeah, this is one of those facts that I’m sad not enough people know. The terms of “world country” was literally invented to say who was Capitalist (first), Communist (second), and unaffiliated (third). Capitalist countries were seen as beautiful and developed and economically secure, second world countries were under strict political lead and uncertain economic value, and third world countries were slums that didn’t know the brilliance of capitalism.
That’s how you got places like India recognised as a third world country when it has a booming economy and society. It all came down to the Red Scare that lead to people using first, second, and third world countries. This is the reason why “developing” nations is now used, because the previous terms were political and biased but now it’s more in reference to the economic and societal factors of the country.
Well if the US wasn't always trying to present itself as the only relevant country in the world, being the one and only "land of the free" and all that, the rest of the world might give it a rest.
>According to the latest state testing, current lead levels in Flint's water have increased since the beginning of 2021, but have remained below federal action levels for the past six and a half years.
Flint invested millions of dollars in improving its water infrastructure, including a new chemical feed building, reservoir renovations, and the addition of a secondary water pipeline for emergencies.
[CBS Detroit](https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/michigan-still-dealing-with-fallout-from-flint-water-crisis-9-years-later/), March 23, 2023
flint is doing much better now. something i almost never see mentioned is there are hundreds of other cities in the US with lead levels as bad as flints during it’s peak crisis.
I’d like to point out that the lead in water situation was far far worse and affected far far more people in Montreal, than in Flint. And there like two people with lead lines in Flint and that’s because they keep driving off the workers trying to replace their water supply line.
I was born, grew up near, and started my career in Flint and my brother still lives there.
https://www.epa.gov/flint
[Montreal](https://globalnews.ca/news/6113701/montreal-drinking-water-lead-flint-michigan/amp/)
“Lead levels in the tap water of some parts of Montreal are as high as those in Flint, Michigan, at the peak of their water crisis in 2015, says a senior city official.”
That crisis in one Canadian city affected more that 300k people.
Guess the population of Flint. >!80k and not every home was affected!<
The US, being so exceptional, is held to a higher standard because the entire world knows that the US is great enough to solve all these problems if it simply wanted to.
My wife's family have a house in the hills in Spain that doesn't have drinkable tap water.
BUT they don't buy 500ml bottles of water, either, so the comment about plastic waste is still totally valid.
The plastic waste comment is totally viable, I moreso posted for the sake of the comment I mentioned in the title. Rest is just for context. Never posted here before, so I wasn't sure how much context was needed.
I think the circumstances where you must buy bottled water but can only obtain it in 500ml bottles must be very specific. The more typical sizes available in places where bottled water is required (5l-8l containers) are cheaper, easier and lighter per-ml, and require exactly the same tech to produce, ship and store as smaller bottles.
There is also several places in Canada where the tap water is not drinkable. This includes several native reserves, but also a few towns with persistently bad water.
Most well developed areas in first world countries have drinkable tap water. It's much more common in rural areas, or a few exceptions like Flint Michigan.
I remember many "boil water advisories" in the small towns I visited while staying at provincial parks in Ontario. I haven't gone much lately, but 10+ years ago it seemed to be a common problem.
It's not that they can't. It's just slightly more profitable to supply nasty, barely-drinkable water from a contaminated lake. It fulfills contractual obligations, and the contract won't change because the writer of the contract is buddies with the CEO of the water supplier.
I'm not even talking about a specific US city here.
That's not anyways very feasible in extremely rural areas. This isn't a US-specific problem, there are commenter from multiple other developed countries who have mentioned not having drinkable tap water in their particular area
>Some tap water in parts of the US tastes so vile you'd think it was toxic.
The comment was "outside of the third world".The US is the richest third world country in the world.
12 cities in Minnesota (the land of 10,000 lakes) have drinking water that exceeds the EPAS proposed limits for the toxic, man-made chemicals known as forever chemicals (PFAS.) Thank 3M.
https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/08/22/12-minnesota-cities-exceed-epas-proposed-limits-for-forever-chemicals-in-drinking-water/
"Name one civilised country which doesn't have drinkable tap water"
Greece
I went to Greece once with highschool, it was pretty strange to learn they didn't have drinkable tapwater.
sounds weird to me, maybe you just had bad luck and there was some temporary issue in the place you went to, sometimes older towns on the sea can have old infrastructure and with too much tourism it can lead to temporary shortages
I think theres still about 11% of people in the EU that have some sort of issues getting hold of decent tap water. Still quite high.
The EU is working quite hard for it through legislation
[https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20181011STO15887/drinking-water-in-the-eu-better-quality-and-access](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20181011STO15887/drinking-water-in-the-eu-better-quality-and-access)
yeah there's plenty of old/rural places that were built in a time where tap water wasn't a thing, or saw recent rapid developments where infrastructure wasn't ready to support such rapid expansion, sometimes it can be hard to update infrastructure quickly in places that are there since medieval times and grew over centuries, sometimes thare's literally no space to to that kind of renovation or it's just absurdly expensive. Or other times we just suck at planning and efficiency, that can be a reason too, unfortunately.
Like, my house is in a dead end street in the center of a small-ish town, it has been built around the year 1900, i think, just like most of the surrounding ones. I will never get optic fiber directly here, it's too much of a hassle to do all the roadwork and update all the cables for the few houses in this street, and it's not like they're going to tear down one of these to build a 5 story bulding with a bunch of new apartments, so we'll just keep getting slow internet on our old copper cable. It's not because we're underdeveloped (though we could definitely do better in many aspects), it's just how this town has evolved during the centuries that clashes with modern standards and there's just not much you can realistically do to update it.
The 11% on this page does not mean "some sort of issues getting hold of decent tap water", that infographic talks about water scarcity, not water quality. That 11% are people whose water supplies are endangered by long draughts or catastrophic events, and could be in danger in the future.
I'm not sure whether that source says that the tap water is undrinkable though - but that long term availability lags behind supply - which could be explained by those people living in drought prone areas, for example
Yeah, its mostly due to supply as you say. It may or may not also include water that is unfit for consumption.
Personally, I always thought drinkable tap water was a requirement of being in the EU nowadays. I guess not.
The stats on that site seems to suggest that drinkable or not, about 65% of people drink from the tap. I find that astonishingly low myself! I guess that's just my bias coming from a part of the EU where tap water is good.
well of course i can't speak about your particular trip but Greece, like many european countries, has a lot of very old towns and cities, they weren't built with mass tourism in mind and it's not unusual even for bigger cities to have places where it's not really possible to quickly update infrastructure to keep up with new developments. There's plenty of small coastal towns here in Italy where older streets are narrower than a single car, it's not easy to just open up those and place new pipes, so it's plausible to have restrictions and warnings about the use of water or electricity when demand is at peak, especially for hotels where they might err on the side of caution. The current state of climate also doesn't help in regards to fresh water availabiity
it was probably a warning because it just tastes bad when there's too much chlorine while still being safe, so for tourists that might not be used to that it could have raised come concerns, or again maybe it was during some momentary drought/shortage so the concentration was over legal limits
> And yes, Mexico IS a civilised country... mostly
I suppose it depends on how you define a third world country since the meaning has been changing in the past decade. By the old definition Mexico is a third world country, by the new it isn't.
My cousin used to live in an area with "brown water alerts." yes it's what you think it is, and god knows why anyone would live there. I guess she missed one announcement and was in the shower and got some water in her mouth by accident and ended up shooting out both ends for days. It was early in her marriage and she said the way her husband handled it proved she made a great decision 😂
Rockford, Mi; my hometown has had pockets of water contaminated by PFAS from shoe factories dumping waste for decades. The problem is just now being addressed as in the last 5 years it was revealed how many people were actually at risk.
Forget whether they have access to drinkable tap water or whether they're wasting plastic by buying such small bottles. What I want to know is why the hell are they refrigerating all of it at once?
I recently went somewhere in Mexico where the groundwater was so salty that you couldn’t drink from the taps. The locals handled it by buying gigantic jugs of water that would last them weeks, rather than filling their fridges with plastic waste.
In fairness to these people, I live in an area (Yorkshire) with some of the best water quality in the world and everytime I go to the supermarket I still see people buying huge multipacks of bottled water. I know some people don't really have a choice which is fine, but other people don't need it and are just being extremely wasteful. People seem to have normalised drinking refrigerated bottled water when there is clean safe water available to them.
I don't know if it's technically true or not, but as an Australian I have always taken it for granted that there would be tap water that is at the very least "drinkable". I would tend to form a low opinion about a government that failed to provide this.
We have an awesome well but the last inspector didn't secure it properly and it got invested with rats who drowned in the water. It took two months for the water treatment to make it semi safe and we kept drinking bottled water for a year later.
I have a saying for this.
If the tap water's clear, use my filter
If it's red, brown, or smells like rotting fish
Fill your fridge with bottled water
It doesn't rhyme, but it has served me well.
The real tragedy is that Flint is surrounded by some of the world's best drinking water, and it's getting poisoned on the way to people by lead pipes that landlords and city officials were too cheap to replace.
Dude you claim to be a communist… if you love communism so much why don’t you spend a year in North Korea and then go back here and tell me how awful the US is
Well, not everyone outside of the third world, but everyone in the first world has drinkable water out of the tab. A country with no security of drinkable water, no universal healthcare, no universal PTO, no Laws protecting working pregnant women and mothers of newborn babies simply can’t qualify to be first world countries
Another common misunderstanding is that everyone IN the third world doesn't have drinkable tap water. I live in Sweden, and we have excellent tap water.
The US is just a really wealthy 3rd world country justvlook at crime rates, Healthcare, incarceration rates, infant mortality, education the list goes on
You think anyone credible counts the US as a civilised country? It is developing in my books and lacking on many accounts to be a first world country (by the modern, post-cold-war-era definition).
Name a department, other than military, the US is leading where the entire population benefits from. Because boosting the rich to be the best is a metric some third world countries and dictatorships can tick off too.
We passed a trillion dollar 10 year plan to reduce carbon emissions by 50%, it's going p ok
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-climate/biden-unveils-1-7-trillion-climate-plan-to-end-u-s-carbon-emissions-by-2050-idUSKCN1T515R
We created the first sable quantum computer(s), nasa put a rover on Mars that discovered water, making some moves with ai. Did the first stable nuclear fusion reaction. I mean, I guess we're basically democratic republic of congo
The US is good to achieve peaks, but sucks at establishing good living standards for 95-99% of the population.
No mandatory (health) insurance, unions protecting workers, poor public education, poor public safety, +10% living off of food stamps, (radical) churches being heavily involved in politics, no political diversity/alternative, no reliable mainstream media (as they are basically owned by the political parties) and and and
It’s nice to be a leader in research, but if only the elite is able to afford it, it does not speak for education standards.
The self titled leader of the free world is constantly on rank 60-80 in many rankings rating freedom index of countries for population and journalism.
You live good if you’re rich, and you live fine if you have a paying job and don’t ever get sick. But irregularities fuck you over and it reveals the shortcomings of the country
No, he's right. A country that cannot provide clean tap water to all of its citizens is definitely a third world country. As an American I'm fucking tired of living in one.
America is accursed though to be fair. I can't name another 1st world country that cares so little about its people in general, and definitely not another rich nation that can't provide potable water for its people apart from temporary issues and some really remote people (as in literally in the mountains here in Europe)
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He responded by "*That's the USA. They don't even have healthcare. I said a non third world country.*"
Well damn, I have to respect that. (I live in a region where tap water varies wildly, so I treat mine before drinking.)
I mean, he's not wrong. Regardless of its original meaning, a country shouldn't be considered developed/1st world if they don't have civil/human rights, education, healthcare, water and sanitation *throughout* the entire country.
Then not many would fit that definition. Even smaller western countries have extreme rural populations that still use well water, some without plumbing in their houses, no internet, even in areas where it would be easier to implement, compared to the massive area that is the USA. The US is 50 individual countries in a sense, and saying the entire USA is one way is idiotic. Just like saying all of India is the same or all of china is the same. It’s disingenuous to the actual situation, which is most of the USA is very comfortable and easy.
I don't think there is anything necessarily wrong with well water if it's clean. I grew up on it in Oklahoma. It was probably the only water I felt super comfortable drinking straight out the tap as the town water had a bad reputation. Our well was regularly tested and clean.
I agree, I grew up on 40 acres in the middle of nowhere and drank well water. Now I live in a semi-big town and won’t touch the tap water unless it’s for cooking. I can taste the chemicals added to it, but I’m sensitive to that sort of thing
Ditto. A local water softener/treatment guy told me my well water's cleaner than water in the surroundings small towns. Cleaner = fewer biological & chemical contaminants. (Our well water does have more iron in it... hence the softener.)
The big question isn't the source of the drinking water. It's if the _vast_ majority have ready access to clean drinking water, from the sources that are supposed to provide it. In some respects, the US is ahead of a lot of places on drinking water... But in other respects, we're not only doing a _horrible_ job, but we are, in fact, doing _worse_ over time. Flint being an amazingly good example. Their drinking water was safe up until they decided to try and save some money in a really bad way. And now it likely won't be safe again for a depressingly long time. And Flint is far from the only place in the US with problems with their drinking water. Far worse, all of these problems _could_ be solved. As a country, we _have_ the resources needed to solve them. It would, almost certainly, be _cheaper_ in the long run. We just... Don't.
Anyone who thinks the US is a 3rd world country is delusional Downvotes are from people who have never been to one lol
When people call America a 3rd world country they're clearly being hyperbolic. No one thinks America is the equivalent of somewhere like Sudan. But America is also a clear step behind most of the developed world in a lot of things. Death penalty, incarceration rate, firearms deaths, homicide rate, infant mortality rate, wealth inequality, religiosity and abortion laws. There's really two Americas, a rich and a poor one. The rich one is the most prosperous nation in history. The poor one is by most metrics a 3rd world country. Thus the meme.
Lol the comment I was replying to was being very literal. And again no, poor America is not comparable to a 3rd world country.
Somtimes i say US is 3rd country as sature, sometimes i feel its not.
Send them to Pakistan lmfao
I know Redditors are team “USA Bad” but pretty embarrassing to suggest it’s a third world country. They’ve clearly never left their little bubble
By its very definition, the US is as 1st world as you can get. Whether they are fully developed is another matter.
So he's not wrong.... according to the definition you just came up with?
Yes. Try to keep up. Also, the "definition I just came up" is almost verbatim the UN definition.
well riddle me this, why is first world considered developed and not third world, when the third world in our solar system is the only developed world
Checkmate, atheists.
The UN doesn't have a definition of "third world", and it always meant the countries that weren't either "first world" Western industrialized democracies or "second world" Soviet client states.
I'm talking about development indexes. The UN does have definitions for what developed and developing countries are and has indexes to rank them.
Link to the UN definition?
[https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp\_current/2014wesp\_country\_classification.pdf](https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp_current/2014wesp_country_classification.pdf) [https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI](https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI) US at 0.921 and 21st place worldwide.
>https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp\_current/2014wesp\_country\_classification.pdf You linked me to a file that lists United States as "Developed Econom\[y\]". It also doesn't provide specific criteria, nor do the broad criteria match the ones you are claiming they do. Maybe I'm missing something. Where in this file do you see something that supports your statement?
You asked what was the UN criteria and I linked it. I also said in my original comment that according to the very definition that UN espouses a lot of the countries in their list are not developed countries. I'm not sure what's the confusion here.
I guess I just assumed it would support the statement you were making.
So… US = third world. Matches with my observations, especially living in Republican run shithole states.
What reddit does to a mf
Confidently correct!
BURN!🔥 but totally and completely true.
so, technically it would be correct when based on what the country itself is but the third world used to be about countries that weren't part of the western or soviet block, and the states are part of the former it's better to call them a developing country, and it's sounds even more shit than 3rd world :troll:
As someone else pointed out, Switzerland would be a third world country if we base our definition of 1st, 2nd and 3rd world on alignment during the Cold War
who said it wasn't ;P
yup the US is a third world country, it's just rich.
Oh lordy.
I mean he isn't actually wrong on that. The USA shouldn't be considered first world because we don't have jack shit for health care and don't care about our citizens, at all XD
Just so you know America no matter its economic status is by deffinition a first world country.1st world: America, NATO, plus assorted allies2nd world: Soviet Russia, USSR and assorted allies3rd world: Everybody elseThe reason 3rd world became shorthand for poor country was because whenever a 'third world country' was in the news it was: war, famine or economic collapse. Also more on point Japan (a first world country) doesn't have drinking water by tap, they have drinking water delivered. They have tap water for showers and washing, but because of the regular earthquakes they can't guarantee there isn't a contaminate in the pipes.
Yes, the USA is by definition technically a first world country. A banana is technically a berry..
You really need to travel more, shit even visiting some parts of Europe is enough to realize how developed the US is.
I've traveled all over the world, even a few times in the USA.. We know, that's why we laugh at you
As an American who has spent most of his life in Appalachia- you may laugh, but you might also consider sponsoring us for 10 cents a day
“I’ve traveled the whole world” ok so Japan, Europe, Dubai, and the US? Anyone with two eyes that’s actually visited a developing country can tell the difference… You guys laugh until you have a geopolitical crisis, then you come running back ready to worship us lmao. Enjoy your 50% tax rate and lower gdp per capita lol
>You guys laugh until you have a geopolitical crisis, then you come running back ready to worship us lmao. 
None of Western Europe reaches the 2% gdp NATO requirement… but yeah no you guys definitely can handle yourselves against Russia just fine
Holy shit. Everyone who complains about America not being a first world country; go live in fucking Azerbaijan or Kenya for a year. See how you'll feel about the US after that. You Americans are spoiled brats.
It's not the oppression Olympics, just because others have it worse doesn't mean we aren't allowed to complain. Suck a carton of eggs the long way.
Way to set the bar.. Yes, the USA is amazing because it's slightly better to live there than Kenya.. You showed me.. >You Americans Anyways assuming that everyone online is from the USA.. I'll have you know that I'm from a civilized country..
It is not *slightly* better to live in the US than Kenya. It is *significantly* better. The only reason you don't see that is because you're so far left you've gone back up your own ass.
it has nothing to do with political orientation, it's perspective. I'm further left than a no right on red sign, and I can see the obvious difference between a first-world living standard and a third-world living standard. The US isn't a bad place (which doesn't excuse its own errors) and perspective is something the country sorely needs.
>It is not slightly better to live in the US than Kenya. It is significantly better. There are plenty of people living in the US where no, it's not.
Then you probably haven’t visited Kenya have you…
It is not *slightly* better to live in the US than Kenya. It is *significantly* better. The only reason you don't see that is because you're so far left you've gone back up your own ass.
That's not the gotcha you think it is, as you're proving his point: you're the one that used that country as a benchmark. Want a fair conoarison? Compare it to Canada, and yes, some parts of the US don't look developed anymore.
Bro Canada so bent over backwards they selling arms to the Saudi regime and promising carbon zero while exporting millions of barrels of oil. The US does the same, of course, but no country is without flaw is my point. The takeaway should be perspective combined with a willingness to improve even what's already "good"
Many Americans have a degradation fetish. "I'm so disgusting and horrible, aren't I daddy. Literally the worst country in the whole world! Tell me how shit I am! unnnhhh"
This is why I ironically, hate discussing the United States with actual Americans. They either think their country is unable to have any flaws or that it's a third world trash heap. I've had Americans on this site say how my birthplace of Kyrgyzstan is more developed than the USA, I really want them to try living there for *one month*. They'll give up after the first time they get suffocated on a shared minivan.
blame that on Reddit, not Americans. groupthink where redditors try to appeal to the EU audience by making fun of America, etc. Most Americans have enough perspective to acknowledge their relative privilege while still wanting to improve their own country
I'm convinced. I mean, christ, why do they think so many people immigrate to the US? It's not because it's a shithole, lmao
Technically true about the historical meaning of First/Second/Third World, but I feel its use has changed since the Cold War ended and people really refer to developed countries as First World and underdeveloped countries as Third World. Either way it's obviously hyperbole/satire to call USA Third World. But on Japan's drinking water you're just plainly wrong. Their tapwater is entirely safe to drink. I don't know where you got this info but it's completely false.
It depends on where you are in Japan. I lived in Miyako-jima for 6 month (Okinawa prefecture) and the water wasn’t safe to drink there. Everyone had bottles they refilled at a few small treatment plants around the island (and even then, the local treatment places are relatively new. Up until a decade or two ago they had to get their drinking water shipped in).
[Miyako-jima is a tiny island that has virtually no water supply. It has nothing to do with "unsafe" water, but a lack of it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_in_Miyakojima) Interesting that you lived there for 6 months and didn't know that.
It has usable tap water that is used for everything but drinking (showering, washing, etc). From what I was told by the locals the water has an extremely high mineral(?) content that wreaks havoc on one’s internal organs/digestive system if you regularly drink it. (Like “needing surgery to get sediment removed from your stomach” levels of hard water). Also “tiny island” kind of undersells its ~50k population. It’s not massive by any means, but it’s still home to a pretty decent small/mid-sized town.
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I did? A lack of water isn’t the reason people don’t drink the tap water (except, perhaps in years of drought). It’s plentiful enough (or at least was when I was there) just not potable. I was only pointing out the population of Miyako to show that this isn’t a super tiny number of people being effected, but a pretty decent sized town.
from residents in Tokyo while in Tokyo when asking why they had water dispenser in their house. (very similar to office watercoolers. Also the TV shows i watched in japan would also reguly show water deliveries. Its not that it 'unsafe' its that with earthquakes and associated disruptions it is easyier in many places to just use tap water for washing and laundry and bottled water for drinking.
As with any other developed nation, Japan has a regulatory framework overseeing water safety which imposes strict regulations to ensure the tapwater is safe to drink. The same regulators provide assurances that the tapwater is safe to drink, for which they are legally liable. The fact some residents you spoke to prefer to use bottled water, or that you saw a water bottle delivery on TV means precisely nothing, and your statement that 'Japan doesn't have drinking water on tap' is completely (confidently) incorrect.
By that definition Sweden is a third world country. So USA isn't a third world country, but it's a lot worse than some third world countries.
yes
>Also more on point Japan (a first world country) doesn't have drinking water by tap Wow, a confidently incorrect within confidently incorrect. You can absolutely drink the tap water in any part of Japan I have ever been to, what are you smoking?
Weird because everywherei went to in tokyo used either bottled water or water dispensers ie water delivered it might have come out of a tap but it wasn't run through municiple pipes for drinking.
Nobody cares because thats not the actual definition of 1st/3rd world country anymore and hasnt been for a very long time. The meaning of language can change over time and clinging to it for no reason except a 'gotcha' is immature and stupid.
It's a meaningless term that has changed into nothing because nobody agrees on its meaning. Closest definition now is "3rd world means it's missing a [particular thing] I think it should have." That particular thing can be literally anything.
definition* and no, definitions can change, by common English lingo and understanding I would not, and a lot of others would not, consider the USA a 1st world country. Common and modern definitions define first world as a developed country (usually democratic) with stable economics among other things. The USA does not have a stable economy, by extension it does not have good health care, it's also not a democracy. It's a plutocracy bordering on theocracy. IDC about drinking water, and my reply didn't mention it either. lol. Suggested reading for you: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/first-world.asp
What is your definition of a stable economy if USA does not have one?
One that has affordable housing and less then 3% unemployment rate, and jobs that actually pay living wages. A pipe dream, really.
From the website you linked Key Takeaways The term “first world” originally applied to countries that were aligned with the United States and other Western nations in opposition to the former Soviet Union. First world countries are often characterized by prosperity, democracy, and stability—both political and economic. A high literacy rate, free enterprise, and the rule of law are other common characteristics of first world countries. Some critics argue that the concept of dividing nations into three worlds represents an antiquated perspective. Many first world countries have certain demographics that are in extreme poverty, which is more representative of developing countries; other countries with third world status are quite prosperous. The rest of the article is basical saying every version of 'first world' use is useless as some countries that fit don't count, but some that do don't. So in summery the old definition that works isn't used anymore, but the new deffinitions are vague at best contradictory at worse so are pointless.
Hey, I give you kudos for actually taking the time to read it. Most wouldn't. Yeah, it's antiquated...but there really isn't a better terminology for it as of yet, afaik.
That 3% unemployment rate requirement alone knocks out just about every country you’d normally consider first world. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate After a cursory look (you can sort by unemployment rate) Japan and South Korea are the only ones I saw that seemed left. And, speaking from my experience of having lived in Japan for a few years, if the US isn’t first world then neither is Japan.
I can't say anything about Japan as I have never lived there, other then it's definitely probably not a good place to be seeing as they have a dedicated word for suicide by working to death....
Yeah, this is one of those facts that I’m sad not enough people know. The terms of “world country” was literally invented to say who was Capitalist (first), Communist (second), and unaffiliated (third). Capitalist countries were seen as beautiful and developed and economically secure, second world countries were under strict political lead and uncertain economic value, and third world countries were slums that didn’t know the brilliance of capitalism. That’s how you got places like India recognised as a third world country when it has a booming economy and society. It all came down to the Red Scare that lead to people using first, second, and third world countries. This is the reason why “developing” nations is now used, because the previous terms were political and biased but now it’s more in reference to the economic and societal factors of the country.
well Touché to him he's still not right, but, damn, that's a good point
r/redditmoment
Europeans trying not to call the US A third world country challenge: (Impossible)
Well if the US wasn't always trying to present itself as the only relevant country in the world, being the one and only "land of the free" and all that, the rest of the world might give it a rest.
Flint, Michigan was mentioned just shy of 3 hours before the CI...
>According to the latest state testing, current lead levels in Flint's water have increased since the beginning of 2021, but have remained below federal action levels for the past six and a half years. Flint invested millions of dollars in improving its water infrastructure, including a new chemical feed building, reservoir renovations, and the addition of a secondary water pipeline for emergencies. [CBS Detroit](https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/michigan-still-dealing-with-fallout-from-flint-water-crisis-9-years-later/), March 23, 2023
I would like to point out there are still places in Flint that don't have clean drinking water. Like, it still isn't fixed.
flint is doing much better now. something i almost never see mentioned is there are hundreds of other cities in the US with lead levels as bad as flints during it’s peak crisis.
I’d like to point out that the lead in water situation was far far worse and affected far far more people in Montreal, than in Flint. And there like two people with lead lines in Flint and that’s because they keep driving off the workers trying to replace their water supply line. I was born, grew up near, and started my career in Flint and my brother still lives there. https://www.epa.gov/flint [Montreal](https://globalnews.ca/news/6113701/montreal-drinking-water-lead-flint-michigan/amp/) “Lead levels in the tap water of some parts of Montreal are as high as those in Flint, Michigan, at the peak of their water crisis in 2015, says a senior city official.” That crisis in one Canadian city affected more that 300k people. Guess the population of Flint. >!80k and not every home was affected!<
The US, being so exceptional, is held to a higher standard because the entire world knows that the US is great enough to solve all these problems if it simply wanted to.
My wife's family have a house in the hills in Spain that doesn't have drinkable tap water. BUT they don't buy 500ml bottles of water, either, so the comment about plastic waste is still totally valid.
The plastic waste comment is totally viable, I moreso posted for the sake of the comment I mentioned in the title. Rest is just for context. Never posted here before, so I wasn't sure how much context was needed.
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Thanks, I thought more was better. Wouldn't have made as much sense otherwise.
Everyone knows Mitsuko-chan's ears are Olive colored, you trash! >!/s!<
Everyone know Midori is the best girl anyway.
> the comment about plastic waste is still totally valid. Not unless you know exactly what that person's options were for potable water.
Right - perhaps their only water source is an airport vending machine.
Confidentlyincorrect that everyone on Earth has the option for water delivery. Amazing.
I think the circumstances where you must buy bottled water but can only obtain it in 500ml bottles must be very specific. The more typical sizes available in places where bottled water is required (5l-8l containers) are cheaper, easier and lighter per-ml, and require exactly the same tech to produce, ship and store as smaller bottles.
And the big containers are easier to refill.
It's a high possibility these were handed out by humanitarian groups
There is also several places in Canada where the tap water is not drinkable. This includes several native reserves, but also a few towns with persistently bad water. Most well developed areas in first world countries have drinkable tap water. It's much more common in rural areas, or a few exceptions like Flint Michigan.
I remember many "boil water advisories" in the small towns I visited while staying at provincial parks in Ontario. I haven't gone much lately, but 10+ years ago it seemed to be a common problem.
I have cousins in northern BC and Alberta. The water up there is awful. It's kind of a rust color and smells like rotten eggs.
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It's not that they can't. It's just slightly more profitable to supply nasty, barely-drinkable water from a contaminated lake. It fulfills contractual obligations, and the contract won't change because the writer of the contract is buddies with the CEO of the water supplier. I'm not even talking about a specific US city here.
That's not anyways very feasible in extremely rural areas. This isn't a US-specific problem, there are commenter from multiple other developed countries who have mentioned not having drinkable tap water in their particular area
Safe to drink and drinkable are different things... Some tap water in parts of the US tastes so vile you'd think it was toxic.
That's the case where I live. The water is so hard it tastes acidic and makes my stomach upset.
My condolences dude. Having nice tap water to drink is such a blessing that so many people take for granted.
I appreciate it.
Yeah in many places I've lived in rural Pennsylvania the tap water is too nasty to suffer through drinking
>Some tap water in parts of the US tastes so vile you'd think it was toxic. The comment was "outside of the third world".The US is the richest third world country in the world.
12 cities in Minnesota (the land of 10,000 lakes) have drinking water that exceeds the EPAS proposed limits for the toxic, man-made chemicals known as forever chemicals (PFAS.) Thank 3M. https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/08/22/12-minnesota-cities-exceed-epas-proposed-limits-for-forever-chemicals-in-drinking-water/
"Name one civilised country which doesn't have drinkable tap water" Greece I went to Greece once with highschool, it was pretty strange to learn they didn't have drinkable tapwater.
sounds weird to me, maybe you just had bad luck and there was some temporary issue in the place you went to, sometimes older towns on the sea can have old infrastructure and with too much tourism it can lead to temporary shortages
I think theres still about 11% of people in the EU that have some sort of issues getting hold of decent tap water. Still quite high. The EU is working quite hard for it through legislation [https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20181011STO15887/drinking-water-in-the-eu-better-quality-and-access](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20181011STO15887/drinking-water-in-the-eu-better-quality-and-access)
yeah there's plenty of old/rural places that were built in a time where tap water wasn't a thing, or saw recent rapid developments where infrastructure wasn't ready to support such rapid expansion, sometimes it can be hard to update infrastructure quickly in places that are there since medieval times and grew over centuries, sometimes thare's literally no space to to that kind of renovation or it's just absurdly expensive. Or other times we just suck at planning and efficiency, that can be a reason too, unfortunately. Like, my house is in a dead end street in the center of a small-ish town, it has been built around the year 1900, i think, just like most of the surrounding ones. I will never get optic fiber directly here, it's too much of a hassle to do all the roadwork and update all the cables for the few houses in this street, and it's not like they're going to tear down one of these to build a 5 story bulding with a bunch of new apartments, so we'll just keep getting slow internet on our old copper cable. It's not because we're underdeveloped (though we could definitely do better in many aspects), it's just how this town has evolved during the centuries that clashes with modern standards and there's just not much you can realistically do to update it.
The 11% on this page does not mean "some sort of issues getting hold of decent tap water", that infographic talks about water scarcity, not water quality. That 11% are people whose water supplies are endangered by long draughts or catastrophic events, and could be in danger in the future.
I'm not sure whether that source says that the tap water is undrinkable though - but that long term availability lags behind supply - which could be explained by those people living in drought prone areas, for example
Yeah, its mostly due to supply as you say. It may or may not also include water that is unfit for consumption. Personally, I always thought drinkable tap water was a requirement of being in the EU nowadays. I guess not. The stats on that site seems to suggest that drinkable or not, about 65% of people drink from the tap. I find that astonishingly low myself! I guess that's just my bias coming from a part of the EU where tap water is good.
I went to greece for a week. We traveled around a lot, but we started and ended in Athens
well of course i can't speak about your particular trip but Greece, like many european countries, has a lot of very old towns and cities, they weren't built with mass tourism in mind and it's not unusual even for bigger cities to have places where it's not really possible to quickly update infrastructure to keep up with new developments. There's plenty of small coastal towns here in Italy where older streets are narrower than a single car, it's not easy to just open up those and place new pipes, so it's plausible to have restrictions and warnings about the use of water or electricity when demand is at peak, especially for hotels where they might err on the side of caution. The current state of climate also doesn't help in regards to fresh water availabiity
I was told there was too much chlorine in the water and the water wasn't drinkable because of that.
it was probably a warning because it just tastes bad when there's too much chlorine while still being safe, so for tourists that might not be used to that it could have raised come concerns, or again maybe it was during some momentary drought/shortage so the concentration was over legal limits
Canada... we have vast areas where there is no drinkable tap water. There is one boil water advisory that has been in place since 1995...
Mexico Most tap water have residual bacteria and/or residual metals And yes, Mexico IS a civilised country... mostly
Montezuma’s Revenge
> And yes, Mexico IS a civilised country... mostly I suppose it depends on how you define a third world country since the meaning has been changing in the past decade. By the old definition Mexico is a third world country, by the new it isn't.
Yup. We drink bonafont or Santa Maria, which are both bottled water brands.
Would you say Greece is civilised?
My cousin used to live in an area with "brown water alerts." yes it's what you think it is, and god knows why anyone would live there. I guess she missed one announcement and was in the shower and got some water in her mouth by accident and ended up shooting out both ends for days. It was early in her marriage and she said the way her husband handled it proved she made a great decision 😂
Oh, man... that made me gag a little. Hope she's doing just fine now!
Rockford, Mi; my hometown has had pockets of water contaminated by PFAS from shoe factories dumping waste for decades. The problem is just now being addressed as in the last 5 years it was revealed how many people were actually at risk.
Tap water is also not free everywhere...
Excuse me, sir, your water bill is overdue.
Forget whether they have access to drinkable tap water or whether they're wasting plastic by buying such small bottles. What I want to know is why the hell are they refrigerating all of it at once?
Bros fridge is like spongebobs from that one episode
I recently went somewhere in Mexico where the groundwater was so salty that you couldn’t drink from the taps. The locals handled it by buying gigantic jugs of water that would last them weeks, rather than filling their fridges with plastic waste.
“Name one” “I just did. Flint.”
That's not a country :D
I’ll fix that for you „should“. To bad USA
Lol I live 30 minutes from flint love the confidence
"Name one country that doesn't have drinkable water" Uhh various parts of the US, not just Flint either.
In fairness to these people, I live in an area (Yorkshire) with some of the best water quality in the world and everytime I go to the supermarket I still see people buying huge multipacks of bottled water. I know some people don't really have a choice which is fine, but other people don't need it and are just being extremely wasteful. People seem to have normalised drinking refrigerated bottled water when there is clean safe water available to them.
To be fair, isn't the majority of first-world tap water fine to drink?
To be more fair, "The majority" and "everyone" are different statements that mean different things.
Yeah, it should be over 90% of households in first world countries, but not all.
Yes, it would be rare to have places that don't have drinkable tap water barring some sort of event.
Yes and Americans buy pallets of unnecessary bottled water everyday. It’s one of my pet hates here.
So many tribal reservations in the US don’t have drinkable water.
As a fish keeper who does regular water changes and has to check my parameters, lol.
I dunno about y'all, but 'does not have drinkable tap water' is pretty much my definition of a third world country.
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I don't know if it's technically true or not, but as an Australian I have always taken it for granted that there would be tap water that is at the very least "drinkable". I would tend to form a low opinion about a government that failed to provide this.
We have an awesome well but the last inspector didn't secure it properly and it got invested with rats who drowned in the water. It took two months for the water treatment to make it semi safe and we kept drinking bottled water for a year later.
I have a saying for this. If the tap water's clear, use my filter If it's red, brown, or smells like rotting fish Fill your fridge with bottled water It doesn't rhyme, but it has served me well.
*Flint, Michigan entered the chat*
The real tragedy is that Flint is surrounded by some of the world's best drinking water, and it's getting poisoned on the way to people by lead pipes that landlords and city officials were too cheap to replace.
Flint has had safe drinkable water since 2019 though.
An unfortunate development that impacts a beloved criticism.
The US isn't a country outside the third world though
This is what happens when you've never been to an actual third world country and you spend too much time on reddit
Dude you claim to be a communist… if you love communism so much why don’t you spend a year in North Korea and then go back here and tell me how awful the US is
Well, not everyone outside of the third world, but everyone in the first world has drinkable water out of the tab. A country with no security of drinkable water, no universal healthcare, no universal PTO, no Laws protecting working pregnant women and mothers of newborn babies simply can’t qualify to be first world countries
I live in Canada and there’s native reserves that don’t have drinking water
Define ‘drinkable’
Flint has had safe water for a while now FYI
Chicago also has lead problems
Another common misunderstanding is that everyone IN the third world doesn't have drinkable tap water. I live in Sweden, and we have excellent tap water.
Ok, but is the US *really* all that civilized?
The US is just a really wealthy 3rd world country justvlook at crime rates, Healthcare, incarceration rates, infant mortality, education the list goes on
> The US is just a really wealthy 3rd world country The US isn't aligned with the US? Because that's the definition of "3rd world".
Not really. The US is not the measure https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country
None of that has anything to do with the "first/second/third world" system.
Yes it does 3rd world country is a outdated or derogatory term for developing countries https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/third-world.asp
Yes it is hence why I was attacking it
I think they might just be calling America a third world country😂
The german in me can't get over the first comment... What do you mean plastic waste this is recyclable, I'm not throwing away 15 cent per bottle
15ct? do those really look like Mehrweg to you? those are most certainly 25ct each and besides that here it really is unnecessary to get bottled water
Bold of you to assume the US is a civilized country.
No they aren’t wrong. The US isn’t a civilized country
You think anyone credible counts the US as a civilised country? It is developing in my books and lacking on many accounts to be a first world country (by the modern, post-cold-war-era definition). Name a department, other than military, the US is leading where the entire population benefits from. Because boosting the rich to be the best is a metric some third world countries and dictatorships can tick off too.
There is actually no way you're comparing the US to an actual third world country. Talk about privileged.
We passed a trillion dollar 10 year plan to reduce carbon emissions by 50%, it's going p ok https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-climate/biden-unveils-1-7-trillion-climate-plan-to-end-u-s-carbon-emissions-by-2050-idUSKCN1T515R We created the first sable quantum computer(s), nasa put a rover on Mars that discovered water, making some moves with ai. Did the first stable nuclear fusion reaction. I mean, I guess we're basically democratic republic of congo
The US is good to achieve peaks, but sucks at establishing good living standards for 95-99% of the population. No mandatory (health) insurance, unions protecting workers, poor public education, poor public safety, +10% living off of food stamps, (radical) churches being heavily involved in politics, no political diversity/alternative, no reliable mainstream media (as they are basically owned by the political parties) and and and It’s nice to be a leader in research, but if only the elite is able to afford it, it does not speak for education standards. The self titled leader of the free world is constantly on rank 60-80 in many rankings rating freedom index of countries for population and journalism. You live good if you’re rich, and you live fine if you have a paying job and don’t ever get sick. But irregularities fuck you over and it reveals the shortcomings of the country
Sure, but when USA always is the exception, maybe it's time to move them to another category /s, but only a little
or we just put them in the right category for once
Are we still on the "bUt mUh fLinT mIcHiGaN" bandwagon, years after it was resolved?
Not sure you can call the country civilised if you can’t even drink tap water
No, he's right. A country that cannot provide clean tap water to all of its citizens is definitely a third world country. As an American I'm fucking tired of living in one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World It doesn't mean what you think it means. America can not be in the third world by definition.
America is accursed though to be fair. I can't name another 1st world country that cares so little about its people in general, and definitely not another rich nation that can't provide potable water for its people apart from temporary issues and some really remote people (as in literally in the mountains here in Europe)