> What if it’s not a catastrophic event, but technological progress just asymptotically approaches 0? What if there is a limit to layers upon layers of abstraction and at some point it just becomes too complicated to keep going?

Looking at history, there is not really an argument for progress to stop in the long term. I think I get what you mean, that further advancement gets more and more complicated and the human mind gets to a limit what it can comprehend and reason about. But lots of research and progress have been augmented by technology in the past 70 years or so, and I don't see a reason why it wont continue along that path. I agree that there is a limit to everything. But it is almost impossible to forsee when and where that is going to happen.