1) Why does the ability to understand natural language have anything to do with intelligence in other areas? A natural language parser won't necessarily have a clue how to track moving objects or how to play chess.

2) What does intelligence have to do with ethics? Saying "Humans are intelligent beings and humans should not be enslaved, thus intelligent beings should not be enslaved", is like saying "Mario is a plumber and Mario is a game, therefore plumbers are games."

Why? Why does the human get to slide but the computer doesn't?

No.

We're not talking about writing laws. Laws are written by one group of people, applied by a different group, and interpreted by yet a different group of people. Imperative commands executed immediately are different because the interpreter can directly interact with the writer, and (again repeating myself):

What would a human do?

A human would likely recognize the ambiguity, and wait until there's a point in which enough context is provided to disambiguate. For example, "I once saw a deer riding my bicycle. I then slowed my bicycle in order to slow down and see the deer more closely." Or, "I once saw a deer riding my bicycle. But it crashed because deer don't know how to ride bicycles."

If the context is never clarified, the human would probably accept the most reasonable explanation, that "riding my bicycle" was being used as a modifier of the verb "saw" and not as a modifier of the noun "deer".

In cases that it is still unclear, the human would probably think, "Does it matter enough for me to question the meaning?" Perhaps not; the human would smile and pretend to understand knowing it makes little difference.

But in most imperative contexts, it is important to know the difference. The human would ask for clarity.

The computer can be built to do the same as the human in any of these cases.

No pun intended...

These aren't disagreements. These are bullet points.

I'll repeat myself: Since I am able to figure it out, it stands to reason that sufficiently intelligent algorithm can do the same.

Humans can distinguish such ambiguous language constructs. For example: "I once saw a deer riding my bicycle." Although there are at least two ways to interpret the sentence, only one makes sense in nearly all contexts. Now since I am able to figure it out, it stands to reason that sufficiently intelligent algorithm can do the same.

Worst case scenario, if the language interpreter cannot figure it out, it does what humans do in the same situation: it asks for clarification.

Does that mean Obamacare isn't a law?

That makes sense. If there is going to be official recognition of the party (which happens when the party name is listed on the ballot), then there should be an official process of registering the party and allowing the party to put forth its list of candidates. If a candidate is not listed by a party, he/she is listed as an independent and has no direct say.

But I'd rather just take the parties out of the equation. The US system of government is built on the principle of electing representatives, not electing parties, yet the latter is what we do. It's turned a very colorful spectrum of political diversity into a black-and-white set of viewpoints, and those viewpoints change with the political winds. Party fanboys eventually sacrifice their principles to hold the party line, a direct contradiction of having someone represent your viewpoints.

I'll take small victories if that's all we can do. Yet I'm not sure even small victories are possible. Overcoming the two party system we have today seems insurmountable no matter which mechanism we choose.

Your initial argument seemed to favor the primaries by supporting a closed primary system.

tiberus responded, advocating to get rid of primaries and use runoff elections.

Your response was that [the openness of primaries] is silly and runoffs are also silly. (Brackets are my interpretation of your meaning based on your prior post... that is, that you support the primary system so long as it isn't open.)

My response was that the primary system in general is silly. My fix was that we don't need primaries at all precisely because a ranked system would eliminate the need altogether. I may have misunderstood your intent but based on the thread I thought it was clear that your complaints were openness and runoffs, not the primaries themselves.

FTFY

I voted independent last election and I agree that it's stupid that we continue to live with this voting system. But I can't blame people for not throwing away their vote.

You work the system you have. We need to change the system we have.

That means about 12.3% of computers are Windows 8 vs. 3.7% Mavericks. So take from that what you will.