> being unable to study all ant species due to a lack of resources, and being uninterested in doing so. Of course! That's my point. Back to the alien analogy:

> being unable to study all ant species due to a lack of resources, and being uninterested in doing so. Of course! That's my point. Back to the alien analogy: if we believe that human-like life is as common across the universe as ants are on earth, then more-advanced aliens might well be philosophically interested in studying us, but not have yet bothered to reach us. They might be busy "contacting" their local human-ish specieses who they see everywhere, all the time, and not think it is important to spend time contacting similar planet #12358 on the list, that's a bit further out of the way, and could take them a million years of dedicated effort.