Yes, there are examples of where we have collective decided not to pursue a particular technology tree.

For one, Japan banned guns for a few centuries. (Its warrior class was politically powerful and judged that guns would disrupt class relations too much.)

And there have been successful world-wide bans.

For example, following the invention of recombinant DNA technology, scientists convened the Asilomar Conference in 1975. They established a voluntary self-moratorium on certain types of genetic engineering until strict laboratory containment protocols were created.

In the 1980s, bioethicists, theologians, and researchers established a hard ethical line between somatic editing (treating an existing patient's non-reproductive cells) and germline editing (altering future generations).

No one has performed the latter form of genetic engineering except for Chinese scientist He Jiankui in 2018. (Chinese society used to be more ambivalent about the technology than the West is.) In response, Beijing heavily tightened its laws, classifying heritable gene editing as a high-risk medical technology subject to the penal code, and He Jiankui was sentenced to three years in prison.