[EM] IRV's myopia

[Forest Simmons]

Let me explain what I mean by the following phrase from a recent posting:

> 
> the inexorable, myopic, unidirectional march of an
> elimination method.
> 

Imagine a road rally on the west coast where the winning team is the one
that can get the furthest east of the starting point (in a specified time)
without any backtracking. 

In the bye gone early years of the rally no maps were allowed.  So
whenever a team came to a fork in the road they would just follow the one
that appeared to have the more eastwardly heading. 

Needless to say, it didn't always work out well. Just over the horizon the
promising road (heading due East) would double back, while the one headed
South of South East would suddenly veer due East and go straight across
the desert.

New rules allow the use of maps now, but the old timers don't allow their
navigators to peek at any part of the map representing points eastward of
their current position.

That's IRV.

Forest