change my view

One of our long term goals, as a species, should be to become multi planetary. This fits with our instincts, that spread us all around the planet. To this end, the moon is an excellent test bed. It is far enough away to justify being as self sustaining as possible. But close enough that evacuation back to earth or emergency resupply from earth is reasonable.

There are also financial goals. The moon has easy access to resources that are very useful. Some to earth directly (e.g. helium 3 for fusion reactors) some for space.(E.g. water and low gravity for rocket fuel production). It's basically a launch pad to deeper space.

As for why humans. Simply put, robots aren't yet up to the task of heavy construction. We will need people locally, if only for low lag control. At that point, the extra support structures scale up quite efficiently.

The human element might change with time. But it's a chicken and the egg type problem. Until we have the tech, we will need humans in the loop. However, we likely won't develop the tech without extended experience working on another body.

As for Artemis, it's a first step mission. It's not even the foundation of what we will want to build long term. It's the breaking ground so the foundations can be planned out. It's pure science and trailblazing. It will be decades before we see the true return on the investment. But without the investment, that will just be put off more and more.