Over in the Ancient/Classical History forum, some of us think that ancient Rome was a pretty advanced civilization. "Advances" include women's rights, an area where it may be claimed that Roman matrons surpassed European women until the twentieth century. So much is a pretty conventional topic of discussion, but now forum poster TheManiac777 suggests that it is Rome's very decadence that made her an advanced society:

Concerning 'how to define culture', I'd say the more decadent a civilisation gets, the more culture it has. Maybe to clarify: decadence is not a negative word.

What do you think? Post in the forum in the Civilization's Decadence thread.
Elsewhere in the thread, Steven Pressfield would like to hear opinions on the following topic of the great civilization debate:

One area I'd love to hear discussed is society's treatment of its weakest and most vulnerable members.  One would think that that would be a benchmark of civilization -- that the higher the civilization the more empathy and care are granted to those (like Stephen Hawking, say) who are not necessarily "warrior material."