Michael Nielsen argues that what we call the tech tree is really ours — branched from human-specific starting biases. A differently-seeded civilization would explore a structurally different tree, with different nodes we'd find hard to even name.
Behind that is a sharper question: is low-hanging fruit a finite pool that gets exhausted, or does picking it generate more? Physicists sometimes worry a theory of everything will end physics. Computer science suggests otherwise — Turing's definition of computation contained inside it public-key cryptography, and public-key cryptography contained cryptocurrency, and so on.
Try it. Pick fruit. Then switch civilizations and pick again.
A pre-grown tree. Pick until it's gone.
The finite tree empties out. Fruit is fruit; when you've eaten it, there's none left. This is the picture people have in mind when they worry about stagnation — the "low-hanging fruit" metaphor, taken literally.
The generative tree behaves differently. Each picked idea raises new problems — new branches — faster than you can pick them. Turing opened complexity theory opened cryptography opened zero-knowledge proofs opened cryptocurrency. Exhaustion is not on the menu.
And in either mode: reseed the civilization and both the shape and the vocabulary change. There is no canonical tech tree. There's just the one you happen to be climbing, from wherever you happened to start.