Second World

Rob, Vern and I met up last night to plan the future direction of Arizona economic, spiritual, moral and agrarian development. Rob has written an account of it here so I won't repeat that save to say that it was a Virgin Mary and not a Bloody Mary that I was drinking. I have friends that call it a Bloody Shame.

At one point we broadened our discussion beyond the Arizona borders and discussed world economies and touched on first, second and third world countries. I was taught at school that a first world country was a developed economy, a second world country was a communist country and a third world country was a developing country. Developing here is generally a euphemism for stagnating or regressing.

It appears that I may have been one of the only people given those definitions of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world countries and so today quickly checked the definition of them on wikipedia and here is a snippet that fits what I claim.

One of Wikipedia's Second World definitions
Alternatively, First World countries may be defined as having developed market economies, Second World as having developed planned economies, and Third World as having developing economies that may follow either the market or (less often) the planned model, often characterized more by many features in common with feudalistic economies, than by either free-market or planned economies.

The history and development of the terms is far more convoluted than I realized and I encourage you as a self-improving knowledge seeker and all-around know-it-all to read up on the definition.

The bar we were in last night claimed to have 113 beers on tap. Now I've been in bars before that have had 100's of beers but only ever a few on tap. These were all piped right to a barrel. Very impressive - even for someone who has taken a hiatus from drinking.