Well, also the people that are suddenly drafted to fight will lose a lot. For a lot of people it’s a question to choose between:
And while the first option is not great, the second one sounds a lot worse.
Based on this article, there should be other options since 01.01.2025: https://financo.cz/konec-kolkovych-znamek-co-to-znamena-a-jak-se-to-pripravit/
Does that still not work?
In the mentioned Proton calendar, you can share your calendars, but NOT when using the free plan.
So I would say - if you’re already using Proton “suite”, you can give it a go. But if you don’t then I don’t think it makes sense to pay just for their calendar feature. It’s pretty basic (which is sufficient for me, but not for everyone)
Do you have some specific features that are “must have” for you? I’m using the calendar from Proton (considering that I’m using their services as a bundle for mail+drive, I thought “why not”). So far I haven’t found any issues with that, but I’m not a “calendar heavy” user.
My only minor gripe is, that their ipadOS application is just a port from the iOS, not a full-fledged tablet version.
I also use Fluffychat and I’m pretty satisfied. But it has its own “quirks”. I would say it’s slightly more buggy than I would expect. And I’m mostly missing the function for pasting of images from mobile device’s clipboard. It’s still doable, but in a somehow convoluted way. But once I got familiar with it, I’m liking it.
There’s no evidence? Other than Russia saying that they want their “sphere of influence” and so on? What you are saying right now is the same that was already said in 2014. “Let’s don’t anger Russia. Let’s keep them dependent on trading with us and they won’t attack”. And look how much good this has done for Ukraine. So I’m going to flip your argument and ask a rhetorical question: Is there any evidence/precedent that Russia won’t invade again?
Maintaining trading as a manner of keeping peace only works if you’re dealing with rational actors. And if you look around the world, you’ll see that this is not what is happening. You will see USA making threats to Canada, to Panama, to Greenland. These countries were doing what you’re proposing. Trading. And now they’re the target. And it only took “few” irrational people that have other priorities than trade (even if that negatively influences their countries).
Regarding your stance on Ukraine: This is making me pretty annoyed. Because I’m already pretty sure that when Russia is going to invade Slovakia or Baltics or Romania, we’ll keep hearing the same thing. “But a lot of people were pro-Russian there. You don’t understand the intricacies of their local politics.” When Russia is going to invade Germany, you can also use the same argument that eastern Germany is a lot more open towards Russia then the rest of country. You can say this about a lot of countries.
I will repeat myself, but you’re saying things that were said in 2014. They’re being said now. And they will be also said during next invasion. So I can tell you what’s going to be said regarding French nuclear arsenal: “Oh you want to destroy the world/ww3 because of some small country that was already pretty pro-Russian to begin with?”. You can take your whole comment and apply it on all the future conflicts.
And before I reply to your last paragraph, I need to mention that pretty much all of your points are also raised by politicians in my country. Politicians which are proven to be paid by Russia and points which are mostly on Russia’s behalf. Because of that I simply don’t believe you’re arguing in good faith and because of that I won’t reply to any of your replies to this comment. Feel free to reply, but I don’t think it makes sense to continue this discussion. And now to the reply: The only one who conflates Europe having a bigger army with “calling for war” is you. This is what we keep hearing from Russian apologists since 2022. “Europe are warmongers. Kids on internet are pro-war”. The exact point for having bigger army is to NOT need to use it. No one is saying “let’s build an army to invade Russia”, so your point about anyone “wanting” to go to war is moot. What people are saying is that they want bigger army to make us a less-feasible target. And the only people who have objective problem with that are Russians, because it makes their dreams of conquest harder to execute. This is why when anyone uses this argument about “kids are heroes on internet”, it makes me not take the discussion with them seriously.
I can only speak from my very limited experience. My father is the very example of a person who has some beliefs and tries to judge whole world through those beliefs. Everyone who doesn’t share those beliefs is an enemy. If you don’t believe in extreme opinion A, you automatically have to believe in extreme opinion B which is the opposite of A. You probably know such people.
Over last years, we yelled at each other lots of times, but that lead to nowhere. What actually helped was that finding the common ground. To make him understand that just because I don’t agree with his side, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m shilling for the other one. Not everything is bipolar. From my father’s perspective, everyone has to be either pro-Russian or pro-American (which is funny from today’s perspective, but I guess you get my point). You point out that Russia did something bad? He will tell you “Yeah and USA did ! You don’t have an issue with that”. And that’s the thing. To make him understand, that I DO have an issue with that. World is not a football match where you have to take a side and fully commit to it. You don’t have to go “full in” on a topic. Your opinion can be nuanced based on the actual topic, not just dumbed down into “my side thinks that A, so I agree with A. Your side thinks that B, so you have to agree with B”.
Before that I never had much success in having a proper discussion. It always ended up in a screaming match, because he wasn’t listening to arguments. He simply knew, that I had the “other” opinion, so my opinion was automatically wrong. Now he knows, that I don’t fully agree with anyone. He now somehow understands that my opinions are based on a set of principles, not on a tribalistic “my team” vs “your team”. And by understanding that, he’s more open to actually having a discussion on a topic, not just trying to convert me from “bad side” to “good side”.
And don’t get me wrong. He still believes in what he believes in. But he’s more open to accepting that not everything “his side” says is automatically correct. And that by itself is a small victory for me.