In the context of antinatalism it is ironic to hear the claim that we don’t have better things to do with our lives. After all, we are not the ones who have so little to do in life that they feel the need to create another life that will, as it were, give meaning to their own lives.
If you have so much to do in your life why do you need to create another life? Isn’t it precisely because you have nothing to do in your life that you created another life so that you would have something to do in your life?
The “get a life” claim is notorious in activism spaces. Lots of activists trying to promote a variety of goals come across this claim many times during their activistic lives, in a variety of contexts, and usually accompanied by disparaging looks and tones. But what they all have in common is the speakers. We usually try to address the arguments and not the arguers, but in this case it’s hard to ignore a very distinct commonality among all the arguers – all of them have never, and probably never will, devote their time and energy to promoting ideas for the common good, even those that in their opinion are not in the category of “don’t you have better things to do”. With the exception of devout nihilists, it is hard to believe that there is anyone who can’t find at least one struggle for change that s/he finds justified and worthy. But the ‘get a life’ people never bother. We have never come across activists who ask other activists “don’t you have better things to do?” It somehow always comes from people who devote their lives to promoting only their own narrow interests.
In any case, the answer is that we have a lot to do. The fact that there is so much to do, so many problems to try to solve, so many goals to strive for, so many wrongs to correct, is definitely another reason not to spend our whole life satisfying needs that did not exist before we decided to create them, but to focus our lives on meeting needs that already exist, to focus on helping those that already exist. So ironically, we have a lot to do largely because of those who claim we have nothing to do.