yeah, and they pushed it as a theory of everything (which I think they had justification to believe for the first few decades [~] to get funding. So I also blam

yeah, and they pushed it as a theory of everything (which I think they had justification to believe for the first few decades [~] to get funding. So I also blame the entire economic system that academia is unfortunately embedded in. [~] It still isn't neccesarily ruled out, it's just incredibly unfeasible at the moment as a physical theory since it is currently very poorly understood and like centuries away from experimental tests (as is any GUT or QG theory i.e. this is not a criticism of string theory but basically any theory past the standard model). However it is extremely interesting currently as a subject in mathematics, and it has deep connections with current research in algebraic geometry and the geometric langlands program.