It seems like the desperation is the more powerful motivator but carries significant side effects. I wonder if it's possible to motivate people in meaningful wa

It seems like the desperation is the more powerful motivator but carries significant side effects. I wonder if it's possible to motivate people in meaningful ways with only carrot and no stick. NASA inspired millions of children in the 60s and 70s to go into science yet real progress in space technology seems to have only picked up recently. Similarly with nuclear technology, it took 12 years to get from nukes could exist to 15KT yields to 50MT yields but we still don't have fusion and fission reactor designs haven't changed that much in decades despite significant problems. Sometimes I feel like people are change adverse and won't just change things to improve them. People only really change things when there's a significant threat of them getting worse. Reality is surely more complicated and nuanced but I think it will mark a significant change in our evolution when we improve things because we know they can be better instead of racing to avoid a disaster.