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Q&A

May a very short-lived species raise as a stable civilization?

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Consider a planet similar from Earth: very suitable for life, with vegetal and animal life forms thriving onside.

I wonder if one of these life forms could raise as a civilization as humans did, if genetic evolution would have give to them at least the same intelligence, but a very short life expectancy ? (I'm talking about a life expectancy of some weeks, or even some days).
It could be comparable to some insects life forms actually on Earth.

I think the main problem here would be education: it takes years to a human to learn to speak, walk and then basic writings or arithmetics, and then sometimes more than two decades to earn a competence level sufficient to be useful to his or her community.

But if this problem was bypassed, by a very strong instinct, or even a technological or magical technique, giving to each individual strong knowledge or abilities at birth, could it stabilize on a complete civilization ?

UPDATE:

If your answer is no, why do you think it's just impossible, and how could it be possible ? What would be the shortest life expectancy acceptable ?

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This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/18798. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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