Actually one of the points made in the book Guns, Germs and Steel is that technology and inventions aren&#x27;t developed because there is a need for them. Rather inventions pop up and disappear all the time through history in different cultures. But what makes the technology stay around is that it ends up getting used.<p>E.g. South America did invent wheels, but since there was no ox or horse to pull the invention had not real practical application beyond toys and never got developed.<p>So according to this view I guess technology is always in danger of disappearing if it isn&#x27;t being used.<p>E.g. the Apollo moon rocket can&#x27;t be build anymore because the engineers, companies and machines needed to build all the parts and assembly it are no longer around. One would have to recreate a 1960s American industrial base to do it.