I follow Julian on substack and found out about this discussion from there. I read this post months ago and have been itching to discuss it with people since, so I jumped at this chance. I didn't have an account yet, so I had to make one to comment. I do think it's strange that adamant defense draws suspicion, but adamant criticism does not.

I have no idea if this theory (or fun idea or whatever people want to derisively call it) is correct, but it's wild how unwilling people are to even consider alternative ideas when there are unquestionably issues with the current prevailing theory.

I've read a great deal of Julian's substack, watched a few interviews, and I find him to be deeply thoughtful and quite entertaining, and I'll admit I do find it frustrating to see people dismiss or berate him as just a crazy idea guy without having a good sense of how much has actually gone into this. It's seriously the same thing that happened to Smolin when Susskind brought his weak arguments against CNS and the theory just gathered dust.

Anyway, feel free to write me off as a bot, alt, or some rabid idiot fanboy. As a cosmology enthusiast (but certainly not a scientist by any definition) I was hoping for a discussion of the ideas in the post, but this has been enlightening in other ways, which is not without value.