maybe the real treasures are the natural resources we destroy along the way!

Quite a few assumptions being made and quite a lot of hyperbole.

• The richest man in the world is not representative of the human race. Also, settling Mars (within timelines that musk is suggesting) is not treated seriously by any institution with significant power.
• We aren't putting earth's ability to host life in jeopardy. Not even close. Yes, human caused climate change is bad. Worst case outcomes lead to most human settlements going under water and extinctions in a manner that the planet has seen only a few times. But again, not even close where we need to abandon earth cuz we "ruined it" or whatever. Not even nuclear war would lead humanity to come to this conclusion.

As for why a civilization should be interested in spreading out as much as possible in case it wants to survive:

• spreading out reduces the probability of extinction. Right now, one gamma ray burst that's close enough, and that is aimed at earth can render the entirety of humanity extinct. But if we were more spread out, not all humans would have to die. The same logic can be applied to relativistic weapons aimed at earth.
• spreading out gives us access to a lot of resources. Earth's gravity and atmosphere makes it hard to manufacture and launch megastructures. Megastructures can allow us to create really cool stuff.
• many humans find exploring the universe really cool!

If alien species are anything like us, I highly doubt that they'd come to the conclusion that you've posited.

I refuse to believe that capitalism is the terminal emergent quality of life in the unuverse.

I refuse to believe as much for humanity.

A Great Filter needs to explain why we don't hear radio transmissions from alien civilisations.

The issue isn't just flying saucers not landing in downtown Manhattan, the problem is the universe has been silent so far for us. A universal tendency towards planetary protection doesn't explain why we don't see a cosmos awash in artificial electromagnetic signals. Everything we find seems to have a natural explanation. If life really was as common as it should be, we would see it broadcasting out into the dark like we are. The universe is old, big and filled with the stuff life needs. Life SHOULD exist, the fact that we haven't found any real evidence of it yet is bizarre. Some fundamental part of how we understand the universe is wrong.

The "great filter" is simply basic physics and chemistry, the Periodic Table of the Elements, the fundamental forces and engineering limits.

We're not going there, they're not coming here.

I think the universe being the same wall to wall means life is probably very common, and will follow pretty much the same rules and limits as here. We're not special, neither are they.

I continue to read sci-fi under the lens that it represents our racial (as in human race) tendency to fear the other and enjoying war and destruction despite screaming that we've evolved beyond that. We're a bunch of tribal war-like destructive plains apes with computers and guns.

Star Trek isn't real, there will be no warp drives, transporters, Dyson spheres, Ringworlds, Space Elevators, or even just a basic flush toilet on the Moon.

Forget it. Build something worth living for here cuz out there is a deadly radiation-blasted nothing with nothing in it.

Maybe. But this would still only filter some.

The great filter to me is a vast mix of filters. Some never leave their planets because they are oceanic only and forever, some because the gravity is too high to ever escape, some because they die out, others due to no genetic intrinsic motivation to expand at all, etc. There can by myriad possible filters all applying at the same time

Or, perhaps, the "Great Filter" is just a question of "Can a species come together, or will greed of a person outweigh life of people?"

Nah. They invent generative AI and their civilizational progress stalls forever.

They (we) become Wall-E human style characters.

That would solve the Fermi paradox too. Smart species stayed on their home planet, dumb ones tried to leave it. While trying, they ruined their best chance of survival. While in space, they found out that survival out there is nearly impossible without a planet. That’s why we don’t hear from them.

good ending

we know is a sure bet on where we can prosper if we keep it healthy,

haha dude, error #1. we can do everything right and still be toast if all our eggs are in this one fucking basket. the universe is a big place and the earth is a very small, vulnerable one.

"We need to spread to the stars to ensure the survival of our species."

Why? Why does our species need to survive? Why would anyone care about that? I don't think anyone really does. People just want to do cool stuff, as entertainment. To alleviate boredom. That's it.

No one reading this will "go to the stars". It's unlikely more than a handful will visit Mars in your lifetime. Why anyone would want to go to Mars is beyond me, it's extremely inhospitable to humans. There's nothing there.

We thought, after going to the moon we'd continue on in that vain, and have space hotels by 2001. It didn't happen, don't think anything will be different this time.

Stop thinking we can trash this planet, "but it's okay because we'll find a different one." That's not going to happen. It's far, far more likely we're going to kill ourselves off long before we can get anywhere close to doing that. That's the reality.

We should die out on this planet.

right, all eggs one basket? sure Jan.