Asklemmy

All of the above. But start with cleaning up this planet. Build better / more sustainable and more diverse communities and energy production. Build arcologies in the arctic, deserts, oceans. Those are good “practice” for building the same off planet.

A quote attributed to a few people, Heinlein and Pournelle for two, "If you can get your ship into orbit, you're halfway to anywhere." Both space and planets have shared and their separate problems to solve. In my head I prefer the image of most populations moving into habitats in space, customized to their preferences, with smaller settlements on various bodies for their own purposes. In my realistic view I don't see us getting that far before we get bogged down with all the problems we've created on this planet. The window to a permanent space civilization might have already shut. A sad thing, as a 70s kid I grew up convinced we were full speed into some version of what scifi had sold to me.

Ringworld.

Genetically modify ourselves so that we can live both in zero gravity (and maybe survive short exposure to vacuum) and on other planets.

We. Like, you and me? Whatever you wanna do I guess.

Neither. There's plenty of room and resources here on Earth. I think it's fine to do space exploration and even have research bases on moons and other planets, but I just don't see the imperative for colonization.

Actually, both.

I don’t think space habitats any significant distance from Earth will be possible. Mitigating the increased radiation will be tough enough just trying to get to Mars, much less trying to stay in space out that far. At least on Mars we can hang out in old lava tubes or something.

After reading A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith I think a O'Neill Cylinder spinning spaceship for artificial gravity type is more achievable than planarity colonisation.

But the main point of the book, and I am fairly convinced of the more I think about it, is that it is a lot of effort and risk for not a lot of gain and we are entirely unprepared for space colonisation.

Both.

Until we are able to travel way faster than what we can do now, I think it’s more feasible to build in space. Lots of implications for long term effects on human bodies though. Most ideal is a wormhole to an identical planet to earth so humans won’t need to adapt.