inb4 sorry for the wall of text.

What you’re noticing is not one, but three problems. None exclusive to quantum mechanics, although I think they do affect QM a bit more.

The first one is an academy full of old fucks, busier making sure their positions remain unchallenged, than investigating their own fields. They do it by nipping the buds of any research that might challenge the theories they support.

Publish-or-perish culture further solidifies the position of those old fucks, and gives them ammunition against their opponents.

The second problem is a society full of clueless muppets, eager to worship: the scientific institutions, some scientists of the past and present, and some discoveries. They do it while shitting on science, demonising the process while deifying its output.

Science is all about the “I don’t know”. It’s about building hypotheses nonstop, so you can collectively tear them apart; including the well-established ones. But that doesn’t work if you want certainty, if you want truth, and society is a bit too eager to wallow in both to get science right.

The third problem is… well, Reddit. And social media in general. There are four types of “collective idiocy” you’re supposed to follow in that shithole, and one of them is genetic fallacy - “focus on who says it, not on what is said”.

What the mod there did is a subtype of genetic fallacy, argumentum ad hominem; it boils down to “Spekker said it, thus it’s invalid”. (The “trust me” is also genetic fallacy, appeal to authority.)

As I said those issues plague science in general, not just quantum mechanics; but since QM is specially prone to attract quacks, it creates a strong knee-jerk reaction from the scientific community - such as fallacious (i.e. idiotic) shortcuts to gauge the validity of a claim, like “this contradicts the status quo, so I assume it’s quackery”.

People often poke fun at String Theorists for proposing things that don’t have immediate practical use, but that is kind of their job to do that, no?

It’s more than that: those hypotheses* are not falsifiable. They offer you no way to say “if X happens, then this is bullshit” - like the theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics itself do. (Note this does not mean either theory is “the truth”; it means they’ve been tested, and survived the tests, warranting their current positions.)

*Let’s call bread “bread” and wine “wine”, OK? String hypotheses. Not theories.

Note that this post has nothing to do with me. I am not saying that I shouldn’t be made fun of if I try to publish an alternative theory, because I have no PhD in physics.

PhD is a title. It does not tell you how valid what you’re saying is. As such, neither you nor the PhD should be made fun of, provided both are in good faith and playing along the method. But what both say should be tested, and potentially made fun of.