Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
If your nation was within NATO, it's likely western If after the collapse of the USSR, your nation joined EU, it's likely western And anything outside this category would be third world or eastern (Russia, China, Vietnam)
I realise you were just offering a hueristic, but Ironically all of the three countries you listed were Second World nations. (I've also never heard Eastern used in a similar way to Western in the way you used it at the end there before.)
Australia isn't Western then, but Romania is?
Wait was Australia not in NATO? oh shit
That's because east-west is not based on the region, it's based on cultural aspects, along with a few other things like how people communicate. This is why Australia is western as it has a western culture. So, the whole cold war NATO thing is not 100% accurate, but defining first, second, and third world is since those are defined by political ideologies.
Well yes, First (Cold War era capitalists), Second (Communist, Marxist, and Maoist nations), and Third World (non-aligned and all the rest of them) are all clearly defined.
Western is more nebulous, which is why I like to push back at it. Each person's idea of "Western" tends to be a little different.
If we're taking the cultural root then Brazil, Israel and Lebanon make a nice test cases.
Edit: oh, you're making the case that Western = First World Nations. That's a fair and valid short cut, with Japan/South Korea/RoC, and various oost-Communist states in Europe.