This is quite fair, and I suspect where I diverge is I don't think bullshit is as intrinsically harmful to a discipline as a practitioner who stakes their entir

This is quite fair, and I suspect where I diverge is I don't think bullshit is as intrinsically harmful to a discipline as a practitioner who stakes their entire career and reputation on every word, because as we have seen in every other boom, it is only from shit that anything can grow. The systems evolved for punishing failure in academia have created a pathological risk aversion that may be hamstringing our species. If we do get a layer of bullshit, we also get more minds mining it for nuggets of gold and nourishment. I don't think either of us are right or wrong on this, and I think the difference is in a respective orientation to risk. Finding a way to add more risk taking to academia is the general problem that I think I am advocating indulging some bullshit in support of, so it's only one of many possible solutions.