Chinese Ghost Cities That Came Alive

Of course not, they evolve over time according to decentralized usage (not necessarily from ignorance.) However, this does not imply that anything anyone says is just as valid as any other, nor that any proposed meaning shift enacted by any small group ought to be immediately and unquestioningly accepted by everyone else. Others are also perfectly free to reject the proposal and continue to use the old meaning -- and to advocate for this, too. Only time will tell which group wins.

Just as words sometimes change meaning, there are many more cases where some people provisionally use a word with a new meaning, but this new meaning fails to take hold and vanishes. This happens when enough other people fail to adopt the proposed new meaning, and stick to the old meaning.

In this case, I am one of those people, and I am encouraging others to do the same. I believe I have very good reasons, and I am sharing them.

Redefining first and third world to mean "rich" and "poor" is unnecessary since we already have words for those meanings, and we have no other convenient words for what "first world" and "third world" conventionally mean in their original usage.

The desire to redefine them is in my opinion solely motivated by the desire for a euphemism to say something "nicer" sounding than "poor." Well, "poor" is not a nice thing; it's never going to sound nice. That desire is merely the euphemism treadmill at work. if you are going to call a group "poor," at least have the decency to say so directly rather than trying to hide behind a euphemism.

Besides, we have no other convenient words to say "aligned with capitalism during the Cold War" and "unaligned with either capitalism or Communism."