A few minutes ago I saw a news item saying that TSMC had to delay its microchip fab on US soil due to lack of talent. This reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about for a while and that is whether we can lose technology.

And the answer is YES. Real life is not like Civilization or Age of Empires, where every time you discover something superior. In real life, technology has to be applied to stay alive. If technology is not applied, it dies.

Think of ancient Rome. Rome was a civilization of great engineers. It would be unfair to say that they invented all the things they did, as similar works have been found much earlier, but they managed to replicate all that technology all over the Mediterranean. However, the civilizations that replaced Ro