You misunderstood everything I wrote. An intelligent person that is actually taking effective action according to their values doesn't see things in simple black and white political ideologies. Dating someone that sees the world so simply would be like dating a child or having a pet, not having an actual partner. Values and actions are important to me, political affiliations are not. Smart people that share my values don't have values that reduce to a simple political ideology or party.

There is no nice way to say this- because you are saying you see the world this way, and I am saying anyone that sees the world that was is either naive or stupid. I don't mean to insult you or your views, but that's how I see it. I don't blame you if you find it insulting and are upset at me.

For example, my fiancee and I work in totally different fields but both care a lot about climate change, and have developed solutions to mitigate its impacts. Both of us have received substantial financial and political support and work daily with people from "both sides" to make this work possible. A lot of conservatives care deeply about things like reducing foreign oil dependence, protecting farms and fisheries, and preventing climate related property damage- and are willing to spend big money on solving those problems.

> you’re not quirky or more interesting for having written this, I have no idea why you would write that on HN

It's the simple truth, I'm someone that doesn't really try to "fit in" so I'm seen as weird by people that do, and I get along better with other people like that.

>Values and actions are important to me, political affiliations are not.

Voting is an action. If my partner (or anyone else) tells me they are going to vote for the person headlining a goal of taking away my daughter's ability to get healthcare, then they move into the category of people who want to harm my children.

You are misunderstanding me in the same way the above poster is. Both you and them seem so obsessed with the idea of blind us vs them partisan politics, you can’t even comprehend that there are people that don’t think that way. It’s not that I would date someone with “opposing” partisan affiliation, but that I won’t date anyone that sees the world through a lens of politics instead of real issues they can solve with creativity and an open mind.

If my/our kid was going to lose healthcare and all they did was vote for the latest liar that says the same old idea will solve that problem- they are either ignorant, or don’t actually care.

The whole thing is largely a game people play to avoid guilt of not actually doing anything about the things they claim to care about… and is deeply encouraged in media and on social media to the point that people don’t even notice how absurd it is.

Almost every older “boomer” that I know has their brain so infected with this they do nothing but watch TV and rant about politics… and of course take zero action besides voting- which shows the only care about the us vs them conflict and don’t actually care about any issues enough to do something real about them.

I miss these people, sometimes it feels like they died because there is nothing left to their previous personalities. They take no actions, no risks, and have no ideas of their own anymore.

>but that I won’t date anyone that sees the world through a lens of politics instead of real issues they can solve with creativity and an open mind.

Politics is the mechanism for solving real issues. It’s war without violence.

> If my/our kid was going to lose healthcare and all they did was vote for the latest liar that says the same old idea will solve that problem- they are either ignorant, or don’t actually care.

This is trivializing the work of countless civil rights activities (who may have also been elected leaders). Those “latest liars” and the people who voted for them contributed to slavery being abolished, women’s suffrage, civil rights, women’s healthcare rights, cannabis legalization, etc.

> The whole thing is largely a game people play to avoid guilt of not actually doing anything about the things they claim to care about… and is deeply encouraged in media and on social media to the point that people don’t even notice how absurd it is.

I have participated in numerous political campaigns, canvassed, even ran and held some local positions. We got things like paid parental leave, paid sick leave, and increases in minimum wages and exempt salaries passed.

It is us vs them. I’m okay with debating things like tax policy or government spending or city planning or environmental concerns. That deal with shared resources that requires a compromise.

I draw the line at violating my kids’ civil rights for no reason. Her body is not a shared resource, so there is zero need to compromise, and there is zero justification for someone else’s morals to come between a doctor and my daughter’s health.

This is not even getting into supporting things like baseless election fraud claims and Jan 6 attacks on the democratic process.

I’m completely failing to communicate what I am trying to say- and you are mapping it to a totally incorrect idea. I am talking about a person that thinks strategically and creatively about solving real world problems, and does not think about the world through a simple dogmatic black and white story where everything is a zero-sum war between a "good" and a "bad" group. That does not at all mean they ignore or are indifferent to politics, but their political views are much more complex than one binary bit of information. I have really nothing to add other than you could consider rereading it with the assumption you misunderstood.

You’re also missing the point that this is about what I look for in someone I want to date- it’s fine if you don’t feel the same.

As an aside, those things you mentioned are indeed great historical triumphs I care deeply about- and were in fact architected by people that saw things as I do. You are only understanding part of the story- and without the whole thing you could not replicate it yourself.

Politics in a democracy is downstream of cultural and technological changes- you have to make that change first, and the political change will follow. The people creating the new ideas, the people leading the cultural changes, and the people leading the final political and legislative changes are all important, but also all very different types of people with different skill sets and personalities.

I’ll also add that all political parties have a simple narrative that essentially all big problems are caused by their opponents opposition. The truth is, problems can’t actually be solved with blind application of ideology. Most of the big problems humans face together, we don't have great solutions for yet. There are pockets of the USA for example where one party or the other has total control, and locally implements their entire agenda, and it always turns out awful for both parties- their ideas only seem like they could work until you actually try them.

As young adult I was very naive and very politically active on the left. Eventually I moved to like minded places where the things I had been fighting for had already been implemented. I had already seen, from the rural area where I grew up that the ideas from the right didn't work great. I was horrified to learn that the ideas from the left just didn’t work either- good intentions can’t make up for bad ideas.