You only set aside occasional low-value fragments for national parks, mostly for your own pleasure and convenience, when it didn’t cost too much?
Earth as a proportion of the solar system’s planetary mass is probably comparable to national parks as a proportion of the Earth’s land, if not lower.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood your point, but if it’s that humanity’s willingness to preserve a fraction of Earth for national parks is a reason for hopefulness that ASI may be willing to preserve an even smaller fraction of the solar system (namely, Earth) for humanity, I think this is addressed here:
it seems like for Our research purposes simulations would be just as good. In fact, far better, because We can optimize the hell out of them, running it on the equivalent of a few square kilometers of solar diameter
“research purposes” involving simulations can be a stand-in for any preference-oriented activity. Unless ASI would have a preference for letting us, in particular, do what we want with some fraction of available resources, no fraction of available resources would be better left in our hands than put to good use.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood your point, but if it’s that humanity’s willingness to preserve a fraction of Earth for national parks is a reason for hopefulness that ASI may be willing to preserve an even smaller fraction of the solar system (namely, Earth) for humanity, I think this is addressed here:
“research purposes” involving simulations can be a stand-in for any preference-oriented activity. Unless ASI would have a preference for letting us, in particular, do what we want with some fraction of available resources, no fraction of available resources would be better left in our hands than put to good use.