TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

I don't know, I think cultures can definitely be rated by and advance in the category of how well the people living in it are treated. It's interesting though, because the phrase "an advanced culture" doesn't really feel natural to me, and I would interpret it as "a culture that's progressed through time" rather than "a culture that's objectively better". I don't know, I think it's ok to think of, for example, Afghanistan's culture as barbaric compared to more developed countries, based on their treatment of women. Though I think this is also starting to cross into a culture vs government discussion, it's not like I have reliable information on how the average Afghanistan male feels about the role of women in their culture. Anyways, I think you're absolutely correct that technological advancement is not equivalent to cultural improvement, I just think that some aspects of culture, most importantly to me how people are treated in it, can be relatively objectively rated, and personally I judge/rate cultures by that aspect.

On another note, to me, primitive is not the same as barbaric. I think some technological advancement is needed for a more "developed" culture, but being more developed certainly doesn't mean better. For an extreme example, if you have a culture that hasn't invented writing yet, I would say it's less developed than one that has--while oral storytelling is still existant, I think some way of more permanently recording information is crucial to developing widespread, long standing culture.

I don't know, I'm rambling at this point and I haven't reread your comment in like a paragraph and a half so I have no idea how on topic I am. I hope this is something thought provoking and welcome your thoughts on how I see things.

Addon edit, written just after I hit submit--As this relates to the prime directive, I think even without the concept of cultural advancement, I think it's still advantageous to let cultures and their technology change and adapt without external influence, from an interstellar perspective. For a planet to develop the technology to join the interstellar community and presenta planetary presence, to me, it implies that their culture has grown unified, and the fact that they haven't driven life on their planet extinct in the process is basically a qualifying factor in their cultural... maturity? If you were to accelerate their technological development to speed their ascent to the interstellar community, it might make it more likely to still have... barbaric? tendencies that could be disastrous for them or other planets. However, trying to weigh that against the potential suffering you could mitigate by advancing them technologically... I don't know, it's certainly not black and white to me. In an extremely primitive analogy, giving a caveman a laser rifle might well result in the eventual extinction of their community. Not the greatest analogy, super oversimplifying, but that's the gist of how I see it.