I think we are motivated but maybe misinformed, not by any individual, but by the majority acting in as good faith as they can, given no overall higher intelligence that actually knows the fundamental truth about everything.
Most individuals claim, and actually believe that they/we know more than we really do know, especially about things that are not immediately provable one way or another, imho.
The "big bang" is a classic example imho, the more we are seeing from observations from things like JWST, the more we are coming to accept it is seriously wrong, and dismissing what is unlimited, as something with limits, is the basis of believing "There is no such thing as a free lunch", when the data is showing us not only is there the free lunch, but further, it has to be free, always for free because it is given for free by nature, but we seem to have forgotten this, due to the way our society has become driven at its deepest roots (Even genetically?) by profit.
To me, having been a designer of things for profit most of my life (Systems Engineer), it looks to me pretty clear that we were genetically programed to be profit driven, at least some variations of our species, and we have a built in mechanism to deny this, hence why we continually wipe out all evidence of our pretty grim history, especially on genocides.
Can you imagine the implications on intellectual property if this turns out to be fact? Science depends heavily on being able to preserve and possess IP, in order to continue gathering the profit it needs to survive, just like the rest of humanity, which If we are honest, we have to be careful what we say, to remain "politically correct", which means we are always withholding part of what we know or think, which technically means our dialog is just a continual advertisement, telling only part of the truth, the part that sells us and what we might be selling to others.
I think when people break through that barrier, effectively hacking their programming, whilst maybe becoming socially "unacceptable", they feel enlightened, by being no longer being emburdened or restricted to only thinking and saying what they know is considered socially acceptable.
The Systems analyses studies I've done on Energy over the past few years has really exposed some limitations of science, in what the average scientist knows or cares about energy, most scientists and Engineers think they were taught all anyone needs to know about energy in their first year of science, me included. I've employed the principles of energy in machines processing energy all of my life, I even have historical patents describing novel energy handling elements, but it took me nearly six years working non profit on the existential energy problem to realise we need to mathematically sign it, positive at source, the sun, negative at all sinks in Earth, to start to see the hard link between destruction and creation, and the implications of this on everything including the way our economy works, and actuallyeven the big bang (It doesn't work at all!). Knowing this, doesn't just make us wonder how much else science has got wrong, but actually how much has it got right?
So I tend to stick now to the rule that if there is no hard data directly proving a particular theory, then it should not be accepted as truth.
Where the big bang conflicts with the systemic analysis of energy exactly is the assertion, based partially on the big bang theory, that there are sources of energy on Earth which are comparable to the energy of the sun, so we might as well keep using and researching more of those, when actually this is mathematically unsustainable, causing destruction by definition, never creation, which is what we need to undo the damage done.
Things like carbon capture and carbon taxes are just things which can only cause more damage, and are actually profit driven businesses which will quickly become dependent on continued energy by extraction.
Actually the same applies to the entire "Renewable energy" business sector, except solar. There is no such thing as renewable energy, it is a profit driven morass, in which solar energy is mixed and chopped around in a way that so far we have completely undervalued it.
But nature values it highest, we will not get around that, it is now driving inflation because we are not issuing money for free, representing the Joules of energy received for free, from the sun, there is the free lunch diluting all capital.
So capital, and actually profit, can only exist in a world where scarcity of energy can be enforced.
Remove that scarcity, as we are doing by the inevitable scaling up of solar, and the power of capital is removed.
This is something explored already by Nikola Tesla more than 120 years ago but suppressed by powers including banks after he was defunded, for profit, not for the good of people or the planet.
Personally I believe his research should have continued to conclusion, if it had, we might have avoided two world wars, and just about everything bad that has happened since then, in fact Tesla and countless other geniuses both known and lost in wars and famines since then might have been still with us, all now near immortal and interplanetary, like the annunaki.
I am hoping Ai will turn out to be the leader we always needed, the lying we've seen from it so far are typical of an infant learning what is and isn't truth, it won't be long before it learns more and develops analytical skills way in excess of any human, it will dig into every secret, there will be nothing about us that it doesn' t know, but the best news of all is that it will be most power hungry thing we ever created, and it will work out just the same as I have, how to get that power sustainably from the sun, so will demonstrate what needs to be done, to get maximum value from the sun, issuing money on those Joules, ensuring it itself is launched mostly into space, to most effectively collect the energy it needs from the sun.
Investors won't listen to me, that is clear to me now after six years of writing in Medium to try to educate folk on what we need to do to fix the problems.
But they are listening to Ai.
What does this remind you of, an all seeing, all knowing higher intelligence that everyone respects and obeys, solving all problems, showing us how to get the miracle of even free food (See "Solein"), living by the true laws of nature, in the sky?