That's an interesting idea. What if, culturally, we get tired of rapid change? In many ways, this has happened before. After Zheng He returned with the Chinese trading fleet, a change in leadership caused China to turn back in in itself for centuries. The ships were burned in the docks. After a fashion, the Middle Ages in Europe was step-back from progress for several hundred years. Islamic culture is currently in the middle of an event like this right now. (Yes, controversial. I'd be happy to share my thoughts on why if anyone asks.) Lots of contributing reasons add in to these events, but the net result is the same.
It's not impossible that we could see a regression again that takes a long time to recover from in the future.
