Note: optimism in SF more easily sighted when the preferred political party is in power
The type of folks you want to meet, if you're interested in doing something that will be seen as important in a generation, are generally fairly apolitical. Politics (at least the hyper-partisan variety pursued in the U.S. today) consumes a lot of energy for the purpose of opposing other people who are expending a lot of energy. It makes sense that neither one of them makes much progress, though they generate much heat and noise in the process. Real change comes from people working on stuff so weird that nobody bothers to oppose them.