Re: Politically Correct Description of the Third World

[John D. Giorgis]

At 08:00 AM 1/31/01 +1300, Bob wrote:
>Given the qualifications on the purpose and the usefulness of the UN HDI by
>one of its authors, the rankings have little meaning anyway 

I think Sen was being overly pessimistic.  The statistic do have some use.
They just shouldn't be taken as the be-all and end-all anymore than per
capita GDP.

>so a perfect Bob
>would have moved on after the comment about Cuba's commonly regarded third
>world status being belied by its position in the index 

This is a fallacy, because it implies that there are an equal number of
developed, transitional, and developing world coutries - which is known to
not be true.   

JDG
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