The error with this approach is that every single physics theory gets exactly the same criticisms.
You can take any of the theories that Hossenfelder would spend time on instead of the ones she does not like, and you would find (basically) a similar percentage of physicists saying it's a mistake to continue in this direction.
In other terms: for each physics theory, on 100 physicists, you have 5 physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it (number made up for illustration, and there is probably some variations, but you get the gist). You took one theory and found few physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it. You conclude, incorrectly, that it means this theory is fundamentally differently treated as any other theories.
(on top of that, it is unfortunate that Hossenfelder later screw up her image by doing way too much mistakes that someone reliable would not do)
I did not ignore Susskind at all. I literally say "for each physics theory, on 100 physicists, you have 5 physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it". I mentioned the name of Hossenfelder, but you can replace it by "Susskind" or "Hossenfelder and Susskind", and the argument is as valid.
As for Susskind, the fact that he was a main contributor is not a factor, on the contrary, what I had in mind is about the percentage of experts in the subject that later criticize the field. You have plenty of other examples in other fields: Shiffman on SUSY, Loeb on WIMP, Hirsch on applied fusion, ... or even Einstein on quantum physics ("Yes, I may have started it but I always regarded these ideas as temporary. I never thought that others would take them so much more seriously than I did.")
Some outsiders are seeing a normal scientific process where people are continuously questioning the validity or the efficiency of things, and they start in their fantasy "look, they say it should not be done this way, it's the proof it's all wrong".
Again, what we observe with String Theory is not at all exceptional. The reason it is "a big deal" is because of the populist message and the scam around "these physicists who stole the public money". It is a bit like "vaccines cause autism": it got some media attention, it resonated with the populist conspiracy theory of "the physicists know but they are farming money" and the anti-intellectual trend, and now it has become both some kind of cultural war and an easy way to farm views and followings and show themselves as "so rebel, so edgy".
Don't get me wrong, I personally think that String Theory is overrated (and I was thinking that way before it was popular to criticize it). And the return of the pendulum means that it may now be in the edge side of the average. But nothing significant to pretend there is a particular dysfunction.
The argument that I'm making was not at all discussed in the video. Can you point to the exact time in the video this argument is made?
It looks like you just took a video with someone defending string theory and simply concluded that we have the same arguments.
My point is that you could build a similar panel (with some eminent physicists pro and con investing in the theory) about more or less all cutting-edge theories. This is just a normal situation to have. Some people don't think string theory is a good use of time, others think it is. The video you presented is just that. It does not demonstrate that having this situation is specific to string theory.
But on the core of the video, I don't find it very interesting. It's a shame because I personally find string theory overrated and I don't like it much, but it is sad to see that there is no good arguments against it.
In the video, Penrose's argument was just "I disagree on some aspect and I don't find it elegant". Big whoop, this happens all the time. He also admits that he does not know enough about it, and when he brings specifics, Greene reacts as if the objections were trivial things he and his colleagues also thought about but realised were not in fact a problem.
Not sure what to say about Weinstein. He basically ends up saying what I just said in my previous paragraph here: Penrose did not provide much argument, just "I don't find it beautiful". That being said, it's a bit strange to see him there as he has a bad reputation as a scientist (not sure I should go into details, but he claimed to have a terrific unified theory for years, TGU, and when he finally explained it publicly, the whole scientific community saw it was nonsense, which is not something you expect for someone who is reliable when talking about science). It does not mean that he may not have good points sometimes, but having pseudoscientists presented as scientists on the panel is not the best.
In fact, the situation is a bit like in open source free software: you have always people saying "you should not work on that, you should work on this instead". People working on KDE are "wasting everyone's time" for not working on Gnome and inversely. People working on a new software when alternatives exist are "bad for the community". And people using a given development paradigm are "fundamentally wrong" according to people who like the other paradigm.
So, in fact, another way of putting my argument: string theory is not particularly bad, what we see around it is in fact so common that you even see it around KDE vs Gnome.
What are you talking about? This is not my argument, this is a different argument.
His intervention (which is not even really an argument) is that "physicists chose what to work on and some of them think string theory is interesting" (and I think his interlocutor failed to provide any rebuttal to that. Weinstein counter-argument is "their choices have side effect so they should make the choice I prefer" which does not really hold water).
My point is that this specific debate that we observe around string theory happens in plenty of cutting edge physics and string theory is not "special".
In the section you mention, Greene does not even mention or make any reference of the situation in any other field than string theory. How is that even barely related?
When people discuss what to do after LHC, some people say "let's prepare for building a Future Circular Collider", to which some physicists are saying "no, that's a bad idea and a waste of money and time". Other people say "let's focus on other ways to probe particles with different kind of detectors", to which some physicists are saying "no, that's a stupid bad and a waste of money and time". Other people say "let's not continue to explore particle physics", to which some physicists are saying "no, that's a bad idea and a waste of money and time".
Whatever you say about what to do after LHC, they will always have people saying it's a bad idea. Maybe you have a personal opinion of what would be best, in which case, you are exactly in the same position as Greene: there will be people who will say "no, I don't like that".
("what to do after LHC" is just an example. There are plenty of other topics: do exotic physics or precision measurement, approach the problem top-down or bottom-up, cold fusion, modified gravity, supersymmetry, ...)
And for the inevitable critics of Sabine...maybe Leonard Susskind is good enough for you: https://youtu.be/2p_Hlm6aCok