It’s kind of interesting to think of society like a videogame. Like we put our stats in oil and tech. But not much in biotech. The different style of civilisation advancement we are missing out on could be wild. But we can’t go back and play the game from the start again, so we’ll never see what that’s like.
Could be computers built off of nerves instead of wires. Computers that grow and multiply. I wonder if it could lead to a new understanding of the nature around us and how we all fit and play a role in the galaxy.
Maybe our desire to explore space is immature. There may be whole other types of space that we can’t see because we don’t have the tech.
We already have a lot of biotech and even some biocomputers. The main issue is that bio structures are fragile for our common use cases.
We also have self replicating machines, 3D printers for example. They are as much as alive as viruses as both require some input from the hosts for full replication cycle. It’s just that most people don’t think about 3D printers as alive and self replicating beings.