You lost me at this point of your narrative which is blindingly white-centred. The invaders who 'settled' America did not signal progress as you claim, but the worst barbaric values to the Indigenous people whose lands they greedily occupied, polluted for 2 centuries and here we are, facing a world wide ecocide. The long-standing, millennia old cultures knew that just building bigger/taller and moving faster, were not the keys to a satisfying human life. The essence of European civilisation is remorseless theft, exploitation, greed and destruction for paltry, short-term gains. It is a stupid, inhuman culture that steals form the future to gain some creature comforts in the present.