re: What would North America be like today had the American Indians been left alone?

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Don't mistake my thinking of them not being the least civilized society on Earth, as believing they would achieve what we see in the Western world today. There's surely a middle ground, and I think in 500 years they would have advanced quite a bit.

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Go back and read your statement again, you claimed that they were more advanced 500 years ago than several societies today, and that is just plain false. Now as to how much they would have advanced in the last 500 years who knows. The Pre-Columbian civilizations were not set up in a manner that fostered much innovation. They literally lived in the stone age in the 16th century, not yet discovering bronze, copper, or iron yet. By the way what peoples do you think inhabit the slums of central and south america today? How much worse would they be without western tech?