The point I was trying to make, though, is from some paper I read a couple of decades ago. Sorry, I can’t reference it, but it basically said that, once a species, such as ours, reaches a certain point of life expectancy, they can then start building what is basically considered, “legacy“.

Basically, we now live long enough that we understand that, for us to have any concept of long-term survival, we must make and build things that outlive us in both physically and conceptually.

That’s when they can start building empires because they stick around long enough to create culture and society and then civilization, because we’re finally living beyond a couple of generations, and we have a vested interest in passing down all of what we know and what came before that type of multi general preservation is what creates a culture.