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This goes more for other scifi shows and worlds like the SW universe and other ancient space civilisations more so than ST.

Do you think that civilizations might purposefully stop advancing their technology at a certain point to preserve themselves?

In the wars universe technology has been at a standstill for millenium, sure there are some improvements, but on the grand scale, tech that is thousands of years old is still up to date in many cases.

Even in trek we see races that have been in space for hundreds or thousands of years that are the equals of humans after a few hundred (granted the humans had help)

Many people have said that if out technology increases pasta point, if nano bots become the norm, AI is everywhere and virtual worlds are the norm, well we no longer seem human.

So would a civilisation stop advancing on purpose to preserve itself?

Depends on the civilization. Humanity? No. We're curious to a fault and natural explorers. If you put, "Here be dragons" on a map someone is going to want to go find out if you're bullshitting him.

Other civilizations? More cautious civilizations, maybe.

I can't see it myself. We don't strive to advance for fun or because of some philosophy - we do it because every advance gives the group who makes it an advantage over the rest. Any portion of the human race that says "enough, no more advancement" will simply be overtaken by those portions that keep on advancing. Like it or not, we will advance until advancement is no longer possible.

Then how do we explaine the lack of advancement we see?

Teaos wrote:Then how do we explaine the lack of advancement we see?

They've simply hit a wall. They've got to the point where there's nothing more to do except carry on refining their existing technology, and if you keep doing that for long enough you'll reach the point of diminishing returns.

In sci fi shows? It's purely because the writers don't want to show technology going beyond a certain point for dramatic reasons.

Trivial example - it's very likely that people of the future will have computers wired directly into their head, so you can control it with just a thought. In the real Enterprise-D the crew would never touch a control or look at a screen - they'd simply think commands into the wi-fi, and have images projected directly into their brain. Hell, there wouldn't even be a bridge - senior officers could teleconference from wherever they happened to be on the ship.

But whilst such things can work well in books, on a TV show it looks weird to show people sitting doing apparently nothing, so technology like this is almost never depicted.

Similar reason for all such limits. Why no serious genetic engineering? Because writers don't want to have a universe where people walk around with six arms, or gills, or are fundamentally different from you and me.

In universe, it's handwaved away by whatever they can come up with. Religious or cultural laws against certain types of technology is a common one.

I have a hard time buying that an organization like Starfleet in Star Trek is not advancing because they dont want to. Just hitting a brick wall in finding something better. Maybe it is the 'special' case in humans that is driving other species to push themselves farther than before.

It is also lazy writing in combination of not wanting to mess with certain established things. Like ENT.

Also kinda like the Star Wars Old Republic games could easily be in the movie era in terms of technology because you don't want to change Star Wars from being not Star Wars.