Wdtabor wrote:

I don't really have time just now to read some book that might, or
might not,
be relevant to what I said. If you have an argument to advance, please
do so.

As I said, I have no argument to advance.

But I am not trying to compare the relative worth of cultures, I am
comparing
results. Had the Amerindian culture rewarded knowledge and ambition as
ours
did, considering the vast resources thay had at their disposal, a
successful
culture would have been large and strong enough to resist us.

And the book I mentioned describes why your analysis of the relative
effects of "cultural" differences is incorrect. The results are clearly
the same, but how we got there matters, and your interpretation of that
(according to "Guns, Germs, and Steel") is flawed.

Instead, they were still in the stone age after 11,000 years. It
doesn't matter
how noble or valuable they might have been from some subjective
viewpoint,
objectively they failed.

Yes, but not due to their culture, which is what you were emphasizing.
That's the only point I was trying to make.

--
Marc J. Zeitlin