Is N. America fated to become a "Second World"?

[Goddess]

People are familiar with the common construct of “the third world.” They are also familiar with the idea of “the first world.” What’s interesting is the idea of how one becomes the other - thus "the second world".

It is not what most people presume - some interstitial state betwixt the third and first worlds, a sort of adolescence one grows through.

The difference between the third world and the first world is not actually wealth or development, it’s systems and cultural practices.

 

“The third world” is the base state of humanity, not some aberrant outcome. It’s the norm, a thing that must be escaped by building the structures that allow for human flourishing.

When you introduce ideas of scientific rationalism, modern communication and transportation systems, sound property rights, markets (including for capital), and ideas of golden rule, you get a phase change and a meteoric rise to wealth. The fragile idea of "doing unto others as one would have done onto them" in turn that underpins the civilizations capable of supporting sufficient amounts of the free market capitalism that has been the only force to ever lift meaningful numbers of people out of grinding poverty.  it’s really the sort of system where you either achieve it or if you don’t, you're locked in a sort of low orbit, low overall development cycle that does not and cannot lift all boats to anything like a first world.

It is only by first becoming high trust people that these sorts of structures may find foundation. If a society of low trust people adopts rules designed for high trust societies, it simply fails. None of the systems can function or establish themselves.

The second world is not a transitional stage - it's a form of post achievement decline, a once lush garden gone to weeds. The second world is a trap and a truly nasty one from which extrication once caught is very difficult because the second world is, in many ways, the worst of all worlds, it’s first world systems that have fallen into hands and practices under which they cannot function.

Low trust people in a low trust system are the third world. If they develop into high trust people, they get the ability to adopt high trust systems and when they do, voila! first world.

But if once they have those systems in place, they revert to being low trust people, the second world awaits.

I think this is where we are headed.

The third world has a number of advantages:

Labor tends to be plentiful, cheap. Populations tend to be young. Things like land and construction food and services are inexpensive. There are not a lot of systems or regulation in place. You can “just do things” and it’s easy to build and hire and engage in small scale entrepreneurial activity. The problem is that it’s difficult to scale because the rights and trust systems are not there to support it. 

The first world also has many advantages:

Labor tends to be highly productive and able to use large amounts of capital to be even more so. It comes with lots of rights protection and strong ability to scale because of this and the high trust nature of interactions. It’s safe and predictable. you can have far flung, high function supply and production chains, rich and flourishing. But this enables many things that are in opposition to it - things like widespread welfare, regulatory, and taxation systems. Populations get old. It’s harder to “just do things” and the flourishing increasingly needs advanced technologies, complex chains of interdependence that are great when they run and highly resilient if left alone, but can fail if meddled with sufficiently or if they fall into disrepair or incompetent hands. The rights that make a first world society worth inhabiting become vulnerabilities if consciously abu$ed. The systems of technology that elevate life become boat anchors in the hands of those unable to operate or sustain them.

The insidious aspect of the full scope second world is the manner in which it starts to infect and grow within the first world. It’s gradual at first, but accelerates rapidly and you can see it as simple institutions erode and functionality dies. Infrastructure decays and degrades. It starts to feel like you are living in the ruins of a civilization.  And once you land here, it's really hard to get out.

This is the problem with “the second world”.  It’s the worst of all worlds. You have the high cost, high regulation structures of the first world but without the knowhow or labor productivity to support it. In the third world, you’d just “go do things” and fix the grid. Here, the regulatory structures don’t allow it and, because the labor is expensive, no one can afford it anyhow once fortunes start to decline.

Life can be pleasant if you have money, but the island is sinking. You can feel the service levels and functionality dropping year by year. You can't escape noticing that this is a system run by folks who cannot seem to manage it and the "deckchairs on the titanic" vibe grows day by day.

 

Some enter the second world by subtraction, but others do so by addition.

Power and other utility grids and infrastructure like roads are obvious markers. So are crumbling neighborhoods and neighborhood safety. The ever expanding homeless tent cities and human detritus littering sidewalks and doorways is another second world phenomenon.

In the first world, people sh00ting up and passing out in the doorway of your high-end home in a nice neighborhood, get rousted and perhaps arrested by a high functioning police force.

In the third world, they get tossed by private security and private actors. Each is a functional system.

But in the second world they get treated like precious Faberge eggs, afforded infinite rights and prerogative, ignored by police, and untouchable by homeowners. In the second world, the rights of the anti-social become vectors of societal abu$e. Behavior drops to terrible low equilibriums and the first world rules defend it and first world conflict avoidance makes handling it oneself..... impossible. It has the protections that make sense for sensible, respectful high trust people, but people who are none of those things wind up wielding them like hammers.

It can go pretty bad, pretty fast. It has this weird ability to just creep, day by day into normalcy.

And no one seems to know how to fix it.

That “not knowing” is a sure sign of second world status. The very people you’d think would most want it fixed, wind up being the ones who line up to stop you.

There is a basic high trust morality, one where you have a “leave a penny take a penny” system or where places like Costco can have a reputation for “accepting any return for any reason” because they pride themselves on top notch, zero friction customer service.

Then some group starts stealing pennies and returning 12 year old stuff as brand new, and the systems choke.

People do it on purpose. And it breaks everything.

This is why you cannot just drop such low trust, non-golden rule people into high trust, golden rule societies and expect to lift them up. They have no interest in being lifted. They just see easy pickins and go picking. They think you are stupid for letting them and lose respect for you and your ways. After all, why respect a culture full of id10ts who are so easy to take advantage of?

It becomes the second world way of life. The second world is a siege, a hostage scenario, a way of life under attack and abuse. The systems are not all crumbling by accident, they are being pulled down by people who prey on it. 

You can't leave a bike unlocked and go into a store in a place like this and have no fear of theft.

You can't have all the easy, pleasant systems of a high trust first world life.

And it takes very few to see the rules, game the rules, and break the system, and pretty soon, you stand in the ruins of your civilization while cheap legalism and manipulation exact expensive prices for everyone. In the second world, you get “Stop or I'll say stop again” protestations that bad people find hilarious, because they know they can use your rights structure against you, but you cannot use it in self defense.  Bad people can really take good people for a ride. And that which is a nuisance at small scale, rapidly grows until the toxin becomes systemic. All your safety nets get wrapped around your neck and drowns you.

This is not seagulls eating french fries left unattended. This is seagulls learning to use the taxpayer’s uber eats account to order from McDonald's to get more fries delivered and no one having any idea how to stop the process and getting called racist and anti-immigrant if they do.

In the second world, defrauding the system is the cottage industry. They share plans with one another until the sophistication is incredible.

The high trust first world lacks the third world immune system to attack this.  Systems stress. Systems break.  Systems fail.

The second world is the worst of all worlds:

Expensive, aged, restrictive, and unable to adapt while being robbed of the productivity and flourishing that made it so attractive. it’s an inversion of ethics through incomprehension and inattention and simpleminded plunder of complex systems that prove too regimented and unpermissive to allow adaptation.

It’s a self digging pit until you wake up and realize that not everyone wants what you want, not everyone wants to be like you, and that when you mix third world mores into first world systems, nothing gets raised up. It’s just gravel in gears and sugar in gas tanks.

The high trust, high function wealthy west is a small place. Left to itself, it’s incredibly resilient internally and against external threats and stressors. It’s been a flourishing first world experiment in human elevation and progress.

But it has little in the way of internal immune system and its systems require high trust to be high function.

This is not a way of life to be lightly traded away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Michael Hardner]

Well,  I don't know about the definitions you have provided... are they yours ?  Because these terms were in use in the thick of the cold war and described, in somewhat simple terms, the wealthy "west" including Japan as 1st world, the utterly poor as in Africa, India etc. as 3rd and everyone else as 2nd.

See - my definitions are pretty succinct.  Can you do that ?  Then maybe we can discuss...

[WestCanMan]

41 minutes ago, Goddess said:

 

Low trust people in a low trust system are the third world. If they develop into high trust people, they get the ability to adopt high trust systems and when they do, voila! first world.

But if once they have those systems in place, they revert to being low trust people, the second world awaits.

I think this is where we are headed.

Our democracy is already "2nd world" by your definition. We were there 20 years ago. It just takes a bit of time for the roads and bridges to crumble to the same extent as our media, judiciary and government have. 

Our society is being undermined from every direction by leftists.

The media is a cesspool and lying is not only unpunished, it's lavishly rewarded by the LPOC. The nuclear family is under attack from lowlife leftists who are actually trying to strip away parental rights. The police and judiciary are now political weapons instead of public servants. Racial division is at the heart of every leftist politician's screed. Liberal Party leaders are serving foreign masters with all of their punitive taxes, regulations, and other barriers to industry...

 

Leftists laugh about how bad the media is because they have no idea how important a integrity is to a healthy  democracy. At the state of our media today, we basically have 1-party rule.

Eg, when the CBC sat on the story of Carney's lie about his phone call with Trump no one was surprised or even angered by it, it was just par for the course. The only surprising aspect of it was that they even spilled the beans at all Then they had the unmitigated gall to sit there and talk about the seriousness of Carney's lie, as if that was the major topic, and people even cared what sleazy pundits thought about it.  

The only reason they actually spilled the beans in the end was they were worried that the truth would eventually get out, so they did it after 7M ballots were already in.

Edited Tuesday at 03:03 PM by WestCanMan

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, Goddess said:

Low trust people in a low trust system

This statement certainly captures the essence of who and what chuds are these days with respect to their governments and most important public institutions.

[Goddess]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

Well,  I don't know about the definitions you have provided... are they yours ?  Because these terms were in use in the thick of the cold war and described, in somewhat simple terms, the wealthy "west" including Japan as 1st world, the utterly poor as in Africa, India etc. as 3rd and everyone else as 2nd.

See - my definitions are pretty succinct.  Can you do that ?  Then maybe we can discuss...

The point of the post wasn't to define 1st world, 2nd world or 3rd world.

In fine leftie form, you utterly miss what the point is and want to argue semantics and definitions of words instead.

Use whatever definitions you like.

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, Goddess said:

Use whatever definitions you like.

Can I just use a definition where Canada remains a 1st world country?  Then I don’t need to read that long copy/paste post. 

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, Goddess said:

The point of the post wasn't to define 1st world, 2nd world or 3rd world.

In fine leftie form, you utterly miss what the point is and want to argue semantics and definitions of words instead.

Use whatever definitions you like.

First of all, calling me a leftie is offensive because I am, and identify as conservative.

If you can't take an innocent question and suggestion without lashing out like a feral tabby then that's ok... I'll move on.

Let me try again though, because I was intrigued by your post: can you come up with a simple phrase to generally characterize what each of these mean TO YOU ?  That way, I can follow you into your thinking and we can discuss your ideas, what is causing the current situation and where it's going etc.

I'm not arguing, I'm asking.  I'm not going to dispute your definitions I just want to understand them.

If you want me to use MY definitions (your last sentence) I would maybe start with sometime that they call the Freedom Index.    I'd use your "3 Worlds" model against Freedom Indices ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices#:~:text=The Index of Economic Freedom,series in political science research. )


So any country that is mostly free, in terms of Economic, Political and Press Freedom is 1st world.  Mostly Unfree in those terms is 3rd world and the rest as 2nd world.

I would also quibble with some of these listed on that Wiki page like China, Egypt, and a few others...  
Your post seems to centre on how '1st world' countries decline, but you're mistaken in describing the '2nd world' in terms of places that have declined.  Some have never really done better than 2nd world and others (Thailand, Fiji, Liberia it looks like) are on their way up.  Liberia elected an American president a few years back and is seeing improvements in infrastructure and education for example.  For them, the 2nd world is for sure NOT 'the worst of all worlds'.  They're building their way to the first world, as are China and Egypt.

This is, to me, the crux of what you are trying to say:

"

The high trust, high function wealthy west is a small place. Left to itself, it’s incredibly resilient internally and against external threats and stressors. It’s been a flourishing first world experiment in human elevation and progress.

But it has little in the way of internal immune system and its systems require high trust to be high function."

 

So it seems like you're most interested in what has gone wrong to bring forward this threat of decline.  And you're saying it's the decline of "trust".  I agree with you on that, that such decline is a decisive factor in things starting to not work properly.  But what is the cause of said decline ?  

I usually fault cultural changes like that with major social changes and technological changes, which themselves can have deeper causes.  To me, it's relative wealth and technology.  Our spectacle-based consumer society has adopted a materialistic view, thanks to a wealthy economy and consumer tech.  That pushes us away from important traditions, values which reflect cross-cultural humanistic touchstones that bind us to each other and make life meaningful.

What do you think?

49 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

Can I just use a definition where Canada remains a 1st world country?  Then I don’t need to read that long copy/paste post. 

It's not that bad... also I think she wrote it.

[Legato]

5 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

First of all, calling me a leftie is offensive because I am, and identify as conservative.
I

Are you saying you are a trans liberal?

[Goddess]

25 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

First of all, calling me a leftie is offensive because I am, and identify as conservative.

You're definitely not a conservative. 

26 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

can you come up with a simple phrase to generally characterize what each of these mean TO YOU ? 

I think its described well, above. How a first society functions, how a third world society functions and how a first world society succumbs to its own weaknesses in not defending its way of life, culture and beliefs, thus sliding into being a second world country, which in my opinion, is worse than a third world country.

If you're not familiar with Gad Saad's thoughts on "suicidal empathy", perhaps that will explain it more. I agree with Dr. Saad.

34 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

So it seems like you're most interested in what has gone wrong to bring forward this threat of decline.  And you're saying it's the decline of "trust".  I agree with you on that, that such decline is a decisive factor in things starting to not work properly.  But what is the cause of said decline ?  

In the case of the West, I think a large part of it is immigration. Too many, too fast for integration to happen and too many who have no intention to integrate, not that the Canadian govt suggests they do anyways. It doesn't. We're bringing in too many that see Canada as a crime/scam/cheat bonanza. But no one can talk about that or you're a racist. But its not about race. It's about culture & values. 

 

40 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

To me, it's relative wealth and technology.  Our spectacle-based consumer society has adopted a materialistic view, thanks to a wealthy economy and consumer tech.  That pushes us away from important traditions, values which reflect cross-cultural humanistic touchstones that bind us to each other and make life meaningful.

That might be part of it. But i dont think its as big a part as what I talk about in the OP.  You did remind me of the Monopoly experiment where they give real people unfair advantages to start the game and invariably, they lord it over the disadvantaged players, mocking and denigrating, believing they deserved the advantage because they are better people. It was an interesting video to watch.

45 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

If you can't take an innocent question and suggestion without lashing out like a feral tabby then that's ok... I'll move on.

I don't find your questions genuine, generally, or innocent.  If they are in this case, then I apologize.

[WestCanMan]

46 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

First of all, calling me a leftie is offensive because I am, and identify as conservative.

Can you get pregnant too, Michael? 

[WestCanMan]

1 hour ago, TreeBeard said:

Can I just use a definition where Canada remains a 1st world country?  Then I don’t need to read that long copy/paste post. 

Can you explain the importance of the media in a healthy democracy, and then grade the CBC's objectivity and integrity for us, Treebeard?

Can you tell us how "Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars sent to MSM outlets on the eve of every election by one political party" was used to protect/ensure media integrity? 

Can you tell us how CBC stacks up against other prominent news orgs like Xinhua, TASS, NoKo News, etc? Do you think they're better in some way, or are they generally worse? If they're better in some way, what might that be?

[Michael Hardner]

15 minutes ago, Goddess said:

1. You're definitely not a conservative. 

2. I think its described well, above. How a first society functions, how a third world society functions and how a first world society succumbs to its own weaknesses in not defending its way of life, culture and beliefs, thus sliding into being a second world country, which in my opinion, is worse than a third world country.

3. If you're not familiar with Gad Saad's thoughts on "suicidal empathy", perhaps that will explain it more. I agree with Dr. Saad.

4. In the case of the West, I think a large part of it is immigration. Too many, too fast for integration to happen and too many who have no intention to integrate, not that the Canadian govt suggests they do anyways. It doesn't. We're bringing in too many that see Canada as a crime/scam/cheat bonanza. But no one can talk about that or you're a racist. But its not about race. It's about culture & values. 

5. That might be part of it. But i dont think its as big a part as what I talk about in the OP.  You did remind me of the Monopoly experiment where they give real people unfair advantages to start the game and invariably, they lord it over the disadvantaged players, mocking and denigrating, believing they deserved the advantage because they are better people. It was an interesting video to watch.

6. I don't find your questions genuine, generally, or innocent.  If they are in this case, then I apologize.

1. Ha.  Says you.   Anyway, keep your opinion and hold it tight ❤️

2.  I'm not going to pick apart your definition but a lot of 2nd world nations are solid in their own culture, beliefs and traditions including no democracy, concentration of power etc.  So maybe they think THEY'RE first world IDK.
3.  I'll look it up.
4.  Yeah, lots of people talk about it.  It was racist 10 years ago, no more.  But if you are conflating higher numbers with loss of culture, you have to at least acknowledge that it's difficult to pin down the "cause" of culture decline.  Lots of locals buy into decadent culture too.
5. I like the analogy.
6. I mean, no doubt I can be snarky and sarcastic... I don't expect anyone to forgive that but if I see a post that interests me I try to say so and that's not sarcastic.

Ok thanks for the chat.

20 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Can you get pregnant too, Michael? 

Stop coming on to me, I said.

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

It's not that bad... also I think she wrote it.

You think @Goddess uses the word “betwixt” in her posts?   
 

It’s a copy/paste job from a substack with no citation.  Plagiarized.  

Edited Tuesday at 07:23 PM by TreeBeard

[Michael Hardner]

16 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

You think @Goddess uses the word “betwixt” in her posts?   
 

It’s a copy/paste job from a substack with no citation.  Plagiarized.  

https://www.google.com/search?q="some+interstitial+state+betwixt+the+third+and+first+worlds%2C+a+sort+of+adolescence+one+grows+through."&oq="some+interstitial+state+betwixt+the+third+and+first+worlds%2C+a+sort+of+adolescence+one+grows+through."&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDEwNjRqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Well seems like THREE substacks used that phrase.  Let's give her a chance to cite/explain...

[WestCanMan]

41 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Stop coming on to me, I said.

Ewww. I don't want eyeball's sloppy seconds. 

[Michael Hardner]

11 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Ewww. I don't want eyeball's sloppy seconds. 

Go to bed Elon...

[Goddess]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

Well seems like THREE substacks used that phrase.  Let's give her a chance to cite/explain...

Yes, sorry. I was rushing this morning and it wouldn't post because I had to find the single instance of the word "id10t" to make it post. 🤣

I also truncated the post.

I also just ignore Treebeard posts so I didn't see before.

Here's the link

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-second-world?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=323914&post_id=161550153&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1lx25n&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

My apologies.

Edited Tuesday at 08:55 PM by Goddess

[TreeBeard]

Plagiarized wall of text, as predicted. 

[Barquentine]

7 hours ago, Goddess said:

Low trust people in a low trust system are the third world. If they develop into high trust people, they get the ability to adopt high trust systems and when they do, voila! first world.

WTF??? Yeah, try some better definitions, then write another confusing screed.

[TreeBeard]

27 minutes ago, Barquentine said:

WTF??? Yeah, try some better definitions, then write another confusing screed.

She didn’t write it.  Plagiarized cut/paste. 

[Michael Hardner]

45 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

Plagiarized wall of text, as predicted. 

It was cited in the end...

[SpankyMcFarland]

With his talk of Alcatraz, coal, dolls, resources and territory, Trump is clearly stuck way back in the 20th century and his capacity to learn what makes countries rich these days is not the best at this stage. It doesn’t augur well for the future of the continent.  

[cougar]

8 hours ago, Goddess said:

 it’s really the sort of system where you either achieve it or if you don’t, you're locked in a sort of low orbit, low overall development cycle that does not and cannot lift all boats to anything like a first world.

 

Was it you who came up with all of this, or you copied / pasted something from the net?

Any idea how many of the "capitalists" (those of us living in a capitalist country) achieve (and what meaning do you give this word?) compared to the rest who are spinning on a low orbit (remaining in a second world country despite supposedly living in a first world one) ?

Second world , or a developing country, used to mean a country of low technologic development; one that cannot manufacture high end goods; one that typically has a high population density of impoverished citizens.  Such a country relies on its natural resources to get the goods and services it needs from the developed world.

A second aspect would be the education level of citizens, intellectual development, core values, humanity (ability to empathise with, support and be part of a wider group).

A third aspect would be a balanced lifestyle - how much time you are left with for yourself and what you can do with it.

Unfortunately a house and a truck would not make one a first world person living in a first world country.

[myata]

In common terminology the second world refers to the alliance of dictatorial, totalitarian states like the Soviet bloc of old. An oversight or irony?