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>>There are people who are interested in the contents of those ponds, and they already have been studied.

But has every single pond been studied no matter its size. Do people rush to study a new discovered pond 5 meters in diameter? Is it that novel that people will rush to it? No, because there are millions of ponds just like it. That is who we are, a little pond maybe 1 meter in diameter (probably should call it a puddle), nothing extraordinary about it. There are a millions of other 1 meter ponds/puddles around the world, why would our pond/puddle be singled out? What is so special about our tiny pond/puddle? That is the point of the article. You are not thinking big enough.

Right, and thanks to all that time studying it is very likely that whatever is in the pond is nothing new. Which is kind of the point of the article. Whatever is in the pond is most likely nothing we haven't seen before. Now, studying the depths of the Arctic is a different matter. Are you saying that we are so rare (just like Arctic species hundreds of meters below ice) that aliens will rush to study us?

The whole point is that we are probably average, just like the life in the pond is probably average, which is the reason nobody will put us on their priority list.

>>This article seems to gloss over the hypothesis that aliens evolved under evolutionary pressure, and are thus likely to want to reproduce and expand.

Remember though that we've already seen that people in rich nations are not driven to reproduce and expand like bunnies. Is there some evolutionary pressure on you that drives you fuck woman and have children with them? Is the impulse so strong that you cannot help yourself? We can have as much sex as we want, but without the children because of birth control. Why would it be any different for Aliens?

>>The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. <<

Look, there are many ponds of varying sizes, a couple of meters to hundreds of meters in diameter, in the woods near my home. Some of them most likely have life of some form. How interested are you in going there and study that life or even just check out what life there is? None? Right. That is the whole point of the article. You already know there is life there, it is not unique. Why bother?

Your are making the exact mistake the author cautions against. We think we are important, most likely we are a dime a dozen in the vastness of the galaxy.