All the Strike Committee’s central members were also refusing their salaries. This was a deeply polarizing maneuver. Reasonable people simply couldn’t bring themselves to hold their breath and leap into the unknown in this way. Most of the lab’s "reasonable people" had long since made their peace with the Collaboratory’s institutional corruption. Therefore, they were all on the take. It followed that they were personally compromised, at war with themselves, riddled with guilt. Greta’s stalwart core of dissidents were made of sterner stuff.