>There's probably some civilizational complexity limit where the unexpected interactions between seemingly isolated pieces of tech become so bad that we cannot introduce anything new without introducing legion of weird bugs.
Come to think of it, I believe that meme was wondering about on UseNet from before the early days. I think Vernor Vinge alluded to it in one of his novels, (paraphrasing here) some interplanetary civilization crashing because in-transit space traffic was so dense no new launches could occur in a useful time frame due to safety-lock outs, and they didn't want to accept the risk in changing the safety margins...
Come to think of it, I believe that meme was wondering about on UseNet from before the early days. I think Vernor Vinge alluded to it in one of his novels, (paraphrasing here) some interplanetary civilization crashing because in-transit space traffic was so dense no new launches could occur in a useful time frame due to safety-lock outs, and they didn't want to accept the risk in changing the safety margins...