Poster you're replying to admits they're a layman. As am I.

Perhaps the people writing articles for the laymen should do a better job explaining the redeeming aspects of String Theory. Because like the OP, I too have been left with the impression (from reading articles targeting laymen) that String Theory is clever math in search of a reality it can describe.

So for example from the current thread:

(someone with training in the field): "It makes sense, it's important and it's a possibility worthy enough to be explored."

versus:

(admittedly uninformed person): "As a layman from a distance, [...] it's total garbage."

Is there any nearer term benefit that may come out of string theory ? I am honestly curious. Somehow I find it hard to believe that so many very intelligent people are chasing something misguided.

That said, we're not devoting the kind of resources to string theory that we devote to engineering ready problems. Probably somewhere in the ballpark of $10M/year worldwide funding provided by various governments, with a similar amount provided by private donors. This is rounding error. In the US, we spend about 10x this on the National Endowment for the Arts.

You can make an argument that all money spent on extensions of the Standard Model (and there are a lot of them besides string theory) has been wasted. But string theory at least has taught us far more about the structure of the mathematical models we use to describe physics than any of its competitors. This is why people continue to study it, even in the absence of experimental confirmation.

I know everybody has an opinion about everything under the Sun, me having an opinion about theirs is only natural. I'm just pointing out the fact that laypersons feel increasingly entitled to dismiss not only the professional work of experts, but whole bodies of knowledge available to them but that they can't be bothered to study. As I don't know whether the professional fields of these people allow for winging it, I'm assuming that maybe they think that you can do that in physics. Well you can't, so if you have a problem with some physical theory the proper way is to engage like everybody else, not trying to kill whatever you don't like because how it sounds from the proudest and laziest outside.

This new sense of entitlement from the opinionated laypersons is actually an antiscience stand, this is what gets you anti-vaxxers and shuts down funding of honest research.