[bumby]

This is a very SV, production-oriented mindset. Everything is a means to an end, to check a box, to move to the next. However, not everyone thinks that way. I'd argue it's not a particularly healthy point of view. If you extend it to its inevitable conclusion, every step in your life is only meaningful because it leads to the next...and ultimately everything culminates in one's death, meaning nothing except your death was of any meaning. I'd encourage you to read Oliver Burkeman's "Four Thousand Weeks" to get a different perspective on how some things are an end to themselves.

I think there's a case to be made that exploration is an end of itself (this is the case made in the movie Interstellar) but that seems to be different that the point the OP made and that you're arguing with resources etc.

[throwaway290]

I think what I wrote is the opposite of "means to an end". Enjoy the journey. (Just make sure to start it)

[bumby]

Ok, sorry for the confusion. It seems like all your previous posts were about it being a means to something else like resources etc.

If “nothing is an end in itself” it certainly implies “everything is a means to some other end.”

[throwaway290]

I see. I guess this view is kinda implicit for me so I was not trying to highlight it.