u/_Some_Two_

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As far as I understand, the state-provided outfit of hastati, principes and, later, legionaries included 2 pila. A lot of online sources say that these were 2 different kinds of pila: one light pilum for the first longer throw and one heavy one for the second shorter throw. Were they really different? How different? What are the sources for this distinction?

Should pilum be viewed as a heavier and advanced counterpart to the lighter and more traditional javelins employed by leves, velites and pretty much everyone else at that time?

Did any melee infantry of other cultures use precursor javelins, specialised heavier versions?

I see that positive economic activity results in surplus value. Then, this surplus value can be directed towards directly fulfilling the needs of population or indirectly by investing into new means of production but investments take long time to show returns even though they are essential to increase the maximum achievable quality of life for the economic participants.

Imagine, there are two islands. The population of the islands can either spend their time mining in a quarry to create an irrigation system or farming as available right now.

The population of one islands decides to spend half of their time building the irrigation system and half farming as available. The population of another doesn’t spend time to build the irrigation system and farms as it is possible.

For a long time, the population of the second island will be better off than the first island’s, have more food per person. Only after some time, when the irrigation of the first island will be completed, will the production of directly consumable goods be higher on the first island per person than on the second island.

In this example, I think that an economic metric (such as GDP) would be better on the second island if adjusted for PPP for a long time even if the population of both islands works equally hard.

I think that economic performance metrics should ideally indicate both the value of new investments and consumption when assessing the health of an economy but adjusting by the power parity of consumer goods sounds like an adjustment that benefits the outlook on economies that have low investment into new production methods/infrastructure.

Is it correct to think about investment and consumption as distinct means of using surplus value of labour? Is this a correct view on PPP as a whole?