But even more fundamentally, she seem to worry about the fact that there are currently no urgent 'holes' that require you to invent new particles. She points out that the method of inventing new particle that worked so well in the past, no longer seems reasonable, but that nevertheless, the high-energy physists stick to it out of tradition. It seems that the field of high-energy physists have become an incrowd that only continues to exist because everybody pads eachothers shoulders and that people on the outside believe that something must be true about it. It sounds as if she as a person is critized (and not her ideas) primarily because of her pointing this out.
I wonder if people made the same argument against funding of research in nuclear fission...
They were eventualy persuaded by an Autralian nuclear scientist acting on behalf of the Commonwealth MAUD scientists.
The issue with the endless(?) chase after ever more exotic particles is that every iteration levels up by some magnitude of effort, where nuclear fission weapons were once ( just out of | just within ) reach and subject to furious debate is more the case that ever fresh exotic particles expontentially escalate beyond actual resources.
Once we ring the circumference of the planet and use all the PetaWatts we can currently generate .. what next?
It'll take a while to level up to smashing suns together .. with no guarentee the rabbit hole is halfway plumbed.
His comment is therefore in agreement with Sabine, and not with yours.