Medium of Death wrote:Perhaps a bad example.
Cultural achievements are a bit of a better measure.
Compare an Amazonian tribe with one of the greater South American empires for example.
There are some reliable ways to compare this sort of thing, and some not so good. (ie. a culture that has mastered stonework is more advanced than one that builds using clay)
It works to compare how technologically advanced a culture is, but not necessarily the morality of either culture. (The British Empire had better technology than the Zulu, but could one say that the way the British treated the peoples of Africa was moral?)
Such cultural issues are far from black-and-white, and I don't very much enjoy debating issues pertaining to them for that reason.