[pksebben]

A little, I think we may have different ideas about what the difficulties were in the early 1900s vs now - I believe that the circumstances are different enough now that broad conclusions about what is and isn't feasible cannot be drawn, but that's just a piece of the puzzle and I think your point deserves merit.

What I would ask, then, is rather than not doing IRV, what should we do, in your opinion?

I'm looking at this as a sort of crisis situation, as our ability to affect our politics is in a state of constant erosion, and the process of capture at work here can only end in systemic collapse - the further power gets concentrated, the more centralized our decision making becomes, and the more vulnerable we become to systemic single point of failure.

I would love to see STAR voting become a thing. I think of IRV in the current context as a proof-of-concept that might show people that we can change the structure of voting. I can't see anyone wanting to go back to FPTP, because I don't really see anyone who thinks it's even remotely working.