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, ...)