There are lots of things in the world we “don’t need”. We don’t need phones, we don’t need any “luxe” products, we don’t need restaurants, we don’t need video games, we don’t need youtube, we don’t need pornography, we don’t need more than two changes of clothing per season… but most have all the above.

What’s the cutoff?

"We could collect those minerals from asteroids."

Massively inefficient and requires huge amounts of energy beyond traditional mining.

Yeah, about half of gold is used in jewelry. About a third is electronics.

Sure, asteroid mining would be expensive due to the challenges you pointed out. It would likely not be profitable any time soon. But not impossible.

I bring this up because I just can't help but feel that open pit mining isn't technically necessary to advance as a civilization - it's just a practical choice that maximizes returns for proverbial shareholders.

I feel we can do better as the apex species of our solar system.

Ah, rockets. Imagine all the exotic toxic materials necessary to launch as the solution to a lesser problem.

Is there really that much exotic toxic stuff necessary in a rocket? Starship is made of steel and the fuel is already abundant. (Liquid oxygen and methane) Sure the engines are made of fancy alloys and such but those are reusable. I guess I don't know what the thermal tiles are made of or where that comes from.

There's also kinetic launching - address the bootstrap problem by concentrating an amount of fancy metals and such in one giant motor that can be reused many times.

Also, gold content of asteroids is incredibly low. You'd be lucky to find a metallic asteroid with even 1 ppm of gold. Mines here on Earth often have grades above 4 ppm. The highest grade mines have above 20 ppm of gold. Second, let's say you find a M-type asteroid, how in the hell are you going to melt the nickel-iron and reprocess it for the valuable stuff like gold and platinum?

Overall, asteroid mining is pretty idiotic. It will not be economical within our lifetimes and certainly will not play a role in producing the resources necessary for combating climate change.