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TimS comments on Work on Security Instead of Friendliness? - Less Wrong
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Ok, you've convinced me that millions is an overestimate.
Summing the top 60% of judges, top 10% of practicing lawyers, and the top 10% of legal thinkers who were not practicing lawyers - since 1215, that's more than 100,00 people. What other intellectual enterprise has that commitment for that period of time? The military has more people total, but far fewer deep thinkers. Religious institutions, maybe? I'd need to think harder about how to appropriately play reference class tennis - the whole Catholic Church is not a fair comparison because it covers more people than the common law.
Stepping back for a moment, I still think your particular criticism of nickLW's point is misplaced. Assuming that he's referencing the intellectual heft and success of the common law tradition, he's right that there's a fair amount of heft there, regardless of his overestimate of the raw numbers.
The existence of that heft doesn't prove what he suggests, but your argument seems to be assaulting the strongest part of his argument by asserting that there has not be a relatively enormous intellectual investment in developing the common law tradition. There has been a very large investment, and the investment has created a powerful institution.
I agree that the common law is a pretty effective legal system, reflecting the work of smart people adjudicating particular cases, and feedback over time (from competition between courts, reversals, reactions to and enforcement difficulties with judgments, and so forth). I would recommend it over civil law for a charter city importing a legal system.
But that's no reason to exaggerate the underlying mechanisms and virtues. I also think that there is an active tendency in some circles to overhype those virtues, as they are tied to ideological disputes. [Edited to remove political label.]
Perhaps a strong individual claim, but I didn't see it clearly connected to a conclusion.
I agree with you that it isn't connected at all with his conclusions. Therefore, challenging it doesn't challenge his conclusion. Nitpicking something that you think is irrelevant to the opposing side's conclusion in a debate is logically rude.