Science Quote by Dan Farmer

The line has the brisk, no-nonsense morality of an engineer watching a meeting get derailed by someone who refuses to engage but still wants veto power. Farmer’s phrasing splits the world into two camps: the people willing to “deal with” a problem and the people who’d rather opt out. Opting out is granted as a legitimate choice - “fine” is doing real diplomatic work here - but the sentence immediately draws a boundary around that choice. The freedom to disengage doesn’t include the right to sabotage.

“Deal with them” is deliberately vague, a placeholder for whatever messy “them” your community is facing: security vulnerabilities, controversial research, unpleasant truths, difficult users, toxic stakeholders. That vagueness is the point. It turns the quote into a portable principle for scientific and technical culture, where progress often depends less on brilliance than on tolerating friction: ambiguity, risk, critique, and the unglamorous labor of mitigation.

The pivot word is “hamper.” Not “disagree,” not “debate,” not “warn.” Hamper suggests passive obstruction: slow-walking, procedural roadblocks, purity tests, the bureaucratic equivalent of throwing sand in the gears. Subtext: if you have an ethical objection, own it openly. If you have a technical concern, articulate it. Don’t hide behind disengagement while quietly policing what others are allowed to attempt.

In context, it reads like a defense of pragmatic engagement over performative refusal. Farmer isn’t romanticizing confrontation; he’s insisting that responsible people must be allowed to do the unpretty work, even when spectators prefer clean hands.