I may write up an answer because the question is interesting, but I think the premise of this question—that we have a meaningful choice between planets and habitats—is unlikely.
1. Assuming space colonization and terraforming get here before AI or other transformative technologies like whole brain emulation, it seems very unlikely that the terraformed planet will be “unmanaged wilderness”. First, the Earth is already over 35% of the land area of the inner planets, so it’s not like there will be a large amount of free space. Second, without the benefit of natural water and nutrient sources, not to mention hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to reach a stable equilibrium, wilderness will be necessarily managed to maintain ecosystem balances.
2. In the long run, planets are extremely inefficient as space colonies. It takes just a few years to disassemble Mercury into solar panels and habitats, creating thousands of times as much economic value as anything that could exist on the planet. Asteroids don’t even need to be lifted out of a gravity well to be turned into habitats. So economic incentives will be strongly against planets, making the question moot. (Unless we turn them into planet-sized computers or something, which would again be out of scope of this question.)
I may write up an answer because the question is interesting, but I think the premise of this question—that we have a meaningful choice between planets and habitats—is unlikely.
1. Assuming space colonization and terraforming get here before AI or other transformative technologies like whole brain emulation, it seems very unlikely that the terraformed planet will be “unmanaged wilderness”. First, the Earth is already over 35% of the land area of the inner planets, so it’s not like there will be a large amount of free space. Second, without the benefit of natural water and nutrient sources, not to mention hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to reach a stable equilibrium, wilderness will be necessarily managed to maintain ecosystem balances.
2. In the long run, planets are extremely inefficient as space colonies. It takes just a few years to disassemble Mercury into solar panels and habitats, creating thousands of times as much economic value as anything that could exist on the planet. Asteroids don’t even need to be lifted out of a gravity well to be turned into habitats. So economic incentives will be strongly against planets, making the question moot. (Unless we turn them into planet-sized computers or something, which would again be out of scope of this question.)