Episode one of season thirty-one of Fish TV does not disappoint. Presenters Marco Kraal and Tamme Smit go “all the way to the extremes of the Netherlands”. Tamme has never been there. On the other side Belgium, in between the Grensmaas. Today they are fishing for barbel and asp. “Fishing,” says Tamme.
Marco starts with a two-handed fly rod, why? You can throw it further. “It is a very nice way of fishing, sometimes it works very well and sometimes not.” It continues to pioneer. Tamme finds it “great fun” to discover such a new place. He is now standing in his frog suit, up to his hips in water. The conditions are good; gray weather, fishing weather. “All lights are green to catch such a beautiful fish here.”
Yes, Tamme has a bite. “A fish’s tank! Phew, what a fish tank. Here it comes, what a tank! What a tank, eh, what a tank. An asp tank. The water exploded how that happened! What a tank.” Tamme is allowed in the picture with his “fish fry”. He is very happy. Marco catches a barbel with both hands. Together the men eat a piece of Limburg pie “straight from the mouth”, looking out over the river. The fishing day doesn’t get any better.
The men hobby their way through life with both hands. But at WNL on Sunday Vincent Karremans, the Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management (VVD), advocated doing this without hands. If Karremans has his way, the Netherlands will become the first European country with self-driving cars. He looks very happy, just like Tamme was happy with his fish.
The future, in which, as a man, you can simply relax driver’s seat can smoke a cigar and it’s not even really your fault if you crash the family
To demonstrate how futuristic this is, presenter Sam Hagens shows a video from 1956. A car zooms along a highway with two men in the front. „Do you mind if I smoke a cigar?“, the driver asks with his hands free. Two women are getting ready in the back. Vincent Karremans licks his lips. Ah, the future, as they already knew it would come in 1956, is finally here. The future, in which you as a man can simply relax in the driver’s seat can smoke a cigar and it’s not even really your fault if you crash the family.
Sam Hagens likes to “read the newspaper” in the car to work (Sam Hagens thinks that the paper newspaper will survive the self-driving car, I hope so too, Sam). But we are not there yet, according to Karremans: “You still have to be there as a director.” Ultimately, Karremans dreams of a future where the car really drives itself and he no longer has to get in when he has to visit his parents-in-law again.
There were more traffic fatalities in the Netherlands again this year. People drive too tired or under the influence. “A self-driving car doesn’t have that,” says Karremans. “It doesn’t drive under the influence.” But who came up with the 37,000 self-driving Teslas that are already in the Netherlands? Oh yes, Elon Musk and he seems to use quite a lot of ketamine again, so yes. Accidents do happen in America with self-driving cars without steering wheels, as we see in a video. “It must be your father, brother or son who is in such a car,” says Karremans. It is unthinkable for him that there would be a woman in the car. Even in a car without a steering wheel, a woman is in the driver’s seat a greater danger to society than mass robotization.