What makes a country ‘developed’? Is the US becoming undeveloped because they’ve fallen so far below the standard of other countries with a high quality of life? If countries move from ‘undeveloped’ to ‘developing’ to ‘developed’ what happens when they start to move backwards? You can’t say they’re ‘developing’ because that implies forward progress, so then does the middle stage become ‘de-developing’? And at what point is progress supposed to just stop because the country is ‘developed’ now? That implies a finality to the process. The whole thing is stupid.
Developed vs developing vs undeveloped are pretty well defined. They are relative terms. So sure you could in theory move from developed to developing, that kind of thing happens very rarely though.
I do agree that “developing” implies progression towards developed, so a more accurate term would be something like “partially developed” but its clunkier. Overall though I think they are far more accurate terms than the alternatives.
From your link:
"According to the United Nations Statistics Division:
There is no established convention for the designation of "developed" and "developing" countries or areas in the United Nations system.[7]"
I do think rankings like the Human Development Index can be useful, which is a 1-5 ranking based on seven criteria like quality of life, life expectancy and income, but calling some countries ‘developed’ as though they’ve hit the end of some process and no further work needs to be done, while other countries must obviously be ‘developing’ towards that standard is just such an incredibly arrogant narrow-minded worldview that really showcases American exceptionalism.
What makes a country ‘developed’? Is the US becoming undeveloped because they’ve fallen so far below the standard of other countries with a high quality of life? If countries move from ‘undeveloped’ to ‘developing’ to ‘developed’ what happens when they start to move backwards? You can’t say they’re ‘developing’ because that implies forward progress, so then does the middle stage become ‘de-developing’? And at what point is progress supposed to just stop because the country is ‘developed’ now? That implies a finality to the process. The whole thing is stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country
Developed vs developing vs undeveloped are pretty well defined. They are relative terms. So sure you could in theory move from developed to developing, that kind of thing happens very rarely though.
I do agree that “developing” implies progression towards developed, so a more accurate term would be something like “partially developed” but its clunkier. Overall though I think they are far more accurate terms than the alternatives.
From your link: "According to the United Nations Statistics Division:
I do think rankings like the Human Development Index can be useful, which is a 1-5 ranking based on seven criteria like quality of life, life expectancy and income, but calling some countries ‘developed’ as though they’ve hit the end of some process and no further work needs to be done, while other countries must obviously be ‘developing’ towards that standard is just such an incredibly arrogant narrow-minded worldview that really showcases American exceptionalism.