The problem is that if folks keep thinking that “ah, it’s just the 3rd world, who cares”, they’ll suddenly realise in a few years that those third world nations have caught up, and quickly. It will be just like the 50s and 60s when the US was undisputed # 1 in everything and disdained rice-burners and Jerry wagons....
I don’t think that Asian countries such as India are going to catch up at all, I think they will overtake us and keep accelerating away from us over the next 50 years. Not only is the East rising, the West is declining horribly. The latter was not occuring (at least nowhere near as rapidly) during the 50s. It will be their world by the end of the century, and there will be little room in it for Westerners (though there will not be many of us around by then anyway).