[chungusamongus]

This just sounds like the black and white fallacy ad nauseum. Like every sentence is constructed to frame the entire issue around a false binary. Like you assume that if "maximalists" use LLMs more than the average joe, they're not "thinking." Black and white. Either-or. Maximalists are hobbyists. They usually read up on the newest models, try out different ones, maybe even build pcs specifically to run local models. You honestly think they're not thinking as much as you? Also there is absolutely no reason to value "being unique" for its own sake. Unique people aren't walking around trying to avoid tech to max out their uniqueness potential. That's just neuroticism. It does seem to me as though a lot of people have this misplaced faith in humanism and it just feels like copium at this point. Worse yet, it honestly just seems like a way to dunk on those they perceive as conformists. So basically just a high school mall goth. You are not in a position to lecture other people about their purpose. Your brain is a pattern recognition machine just like everyone else. You've grown fond of some patterns you picked up on that emerged during the enlightenment and you seem to be just superficially regurgitating them, not unlike an LLM. Calculators made us dumber in the sense that we no longer have to perform mathematical operations on the fly. That gives us room to do something else. What other people do is up to them. That's what freedom is. You assume the maximalist is just sitting there prompting all day. If they are, whatever. That's their hobby. It’s not much different than playing video games all day. Either way, Im pretty sure their lives are filled with sadness and joy just like you and everyone else.