We shouldn't colonize mars, or any other planet, ever. We should just swim in our own filth for the rest of eternity. I mean, this planet had everything we could ask for and look what we did to it, if we start doing this on other planets as well we're eventually just gonna turn into fucking galactus.
The only other planets we can reach are lifeless balls of rock with no ecosystem to destroy and very little in the way of valuable resources. We'd be better served by mining asteroids and planetary rings, which do have valuable resources.
If we discover a way to move things faster than light, however, then we can become Galactus.
I'm a huge sci-fi nerd, and I love the idea of exploring the solar system and galaxy. However, everyone I meet who actually talks about it is also so credulous about terraforming and mining and colonizing. It's an outrageously stupid waste of resources and mental energy and I have such little respect for these people.
Talking about terraforming in our day and age is like Romans talking about steam turbines. Yes they did have one toy example so the idea clearly existed but it was absolutely no good to them whatsoever. The technological leap from the Romans to us must be far smaller than the leap from us to being able to terraform a planet.
I love thinking about and talking about some potential future like that but yeah it's currently in the camp of hard scifi rather than legitimate futurism.