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YTS.MX

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Hey there! My name is Jonathan Blank, and
I'll be your host for this movie making short

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statements about tall people. In case you
didn't know the Dutch are the world's tallest

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people. I'm not sure why that's important,
but I figured I'd mention it. In the US, where

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I'm from, I've heard some people talk about
social democracy like it's a nightmarish hell.

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Back in the 1990s I made a documentary about
Holland. At the time, it was the world's most

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liberal country, and it sure didn't seem like
hell to me. But maybe I was too young, too

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naïve, and too stoned to realize how nightmarish
it really was. So I decided to go back and

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re-evaluate the place with my older, wiser,
and more nearsighted eyes. What I ultimately

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found will surprise you completely, partially,
or not at all.

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Here more people think, well have a nice life.
Enjoy your life. And there's a lot of freedom.

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You have a lot of free time and it's paid
for … that's also for Americans sometimes

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astonishing that you do not only get paid
during your holidays you get extra pay to

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enjoy your holidays.
You get holiday pay on top of your pay?

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Yes.
Is that required by law?

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Yeah.
How much holiday pay do you get?

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You get one month's pay extra.
You get one month's pay extra? So you get

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4 weeks of vacation?
At least.

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And that's paid?
Yeah.

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And then you get one extra month.
Yeah.

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So you're paid 13 months …
Absolutely.

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And you work 11 months.
Yeah.

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And that's by law.
Yeah.

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Dutch adults are ranked as the fifth happiest in the world, and
according to the UN, Dutch children are the happiest kids in the world.

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I went to speak with Professor Margreet de Looze,
who is one of the authors of the UN study.

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So what is the main problem kids have in the Netherlands?

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That's a good question.

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The UN had a study, and they said that kids
in Holland are the happiest kids in the world.

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Have you heard about that?
Yeah we have.

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Freedom and independence, fantastic communication
with their parents. The dinner table, or the

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breakfast table even, is an important part of a
Dutch family, so everyone will sit around together.

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The parents finish work on time
to come home and eat with their kids.

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Do you have to go?

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I have to go soon.

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All right, so we'll wrap up.

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And then spend the time around the table talking

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to each other, and that good communication
carries on into the difficult teenage years.

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In the UNICEF survey, Dutch teenagers had
the best relationships with their mothers

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and fathers of all the other countries surveyed.

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All our children are biking because as a parent

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and your child is 4, 5, 6, you give him the
“sturen en handle” the steering wheel

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of the bike so you are quite autonomous that
you can bike, and being autonomous makes you

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more happy then when you are not allowed to
make your own decisions.

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There’s a socially supportive climate in
school.

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What do you want to do do, Amber? Do you know?
Law School.

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You want to go to law school.
Yeah

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Oh really… high five!
No.

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Please.

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And I think that's related to a larger cultural

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characteristic of the Dutch society which
is very low competitiveness, more emphasis

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on cooperation, on inclusion.

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The Dutch in a way already acknowledge this

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understanding that their child will more likely
not become the valedictorian.

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In fact, they don't even have a valedictorian.
They don’t have a valedictorian.

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They don’t even know what that is, actually.
I didn’t know what it was.

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Really?
Yeah.

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I actually think that makes a dramatic difference
in how children grow up of not being put on

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a pedestal or …
…Not being made to compete with other children

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but to be the best you can be yourself.
So we might not have superstars, but one thing

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that I misunderstood as an American because
I hate the word average it's something that's

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just ingrained in our society. Who wants to
be average when we can be great?

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But what the Dutch accomplished within the education
system is to have a really high level average.

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Much higher than what Americans would consider average.

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I'm going to email this to my sister immediately
after this interview because she was valedictorian.

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Oh dear.

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Surprisingly. While Dutch kids are very happy,

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some moms I spoke with are unhappy about Dutch
maternity leave policies that give women 16

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weeks of paid leave while men get only two days.

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There used to be a woman's party. Is there still a woman's party?

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In politics?
Yeah.

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We do have an animal party. But we
don’t have a specific women’s party.

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But there are some parties, mostly left wing parties,
for whom gender equality is an important issue

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and who, for example, propose paternity leave.
On some lists of gender equality the Netherlands

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score very high and on others they score very
low. So if we look at the percentage of women

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who are active in the labor force we score
very high, but they don't work full time so

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they won't reach the top.

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Everything is equal until you get children

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and then suddenly you feel the difference
between men and women. Should I not work?

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Should I not have had children. What's the
decision? There's no decision there. I always

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thought of feminists like they are angry women.
It was not appealing to me, but then I thought,

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well if this is what I have to be, fuck I’m
a feminist. So then I wrote the book about

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why we're working like we do and what we can
do about it.

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Did people get offended by that title?
We say “fuck” a lot in Holland.

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We don't give a fuck.

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You fuck it up for your children.

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Really fucked up big-time.

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What the fuck!

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Nobody has any fucking idea who the fuck anybody is anymore.

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Illegal as fuck.

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Um…. fuck off

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Fuck off!

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Eh…. fuck off.

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I’m telling you this is really fucked up shit.

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What was the word you used? Snoezel…

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Snoezelzorg.

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Snoezelzorg.
It’s when you have a disability or when

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you are physically challenged you can also
get sexual service, and in the Netherlands

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we have a special term for that which is Snoezelzorg.
And is that covered by the insurance here?

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For some people yes.

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It’s interesting that the government would

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pay for someone to go to a sexologist.
Um.

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So how does it work. Do you go to your doctor
and get a prescription?

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Yeah, although it has changed lately. You
can now also decide yourself. You don’t

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have to go to your doctor.

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My sex care practitioner work is for clients

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who are mentally or physically disabled.
Do you have sex with people?

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Yes I do. Only safe.
Do you pay taxes on that? Of course.

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Why shouldn’t I?
You seem like you're comfortable being out

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and open about this.
I think it's important to break taboo.

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And why is that important?
It’s important that this kind of sex care

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is going into Insurance.
You live in a small town, right. Do your neighbors

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know what you do for a living?
Some do.

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Do you get any negativity towards you?
No, I don’t.

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Can you teach a guy how to have multiple orgasms?

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That’s the standard question.

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I mean these insurance companies they have
a certain a discretionary, I mean certain

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services they can say we do this, or we don't
do it, and if it they don't do it you can

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appeal and you can go to the court of law
and you know you may get your point or not.

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Are there people freaking out about that here?
No. But if everybody would do they probably would.

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So if like 6 million males would, you
know … then there would be a problem I guess.

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The Dutch national healthcare system has a
high approval rating and is ranked as one

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of the best in the world.
In this country almost the entire provider

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landscape in healthcare is private nonprofit.
It’s a private scheme but with all kinds

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of public regulations, risk-adjustment. Of
course, more income dependent, but it's very

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much comparable to the Obamacare Affordable
Care Act system actually.

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There is a certain kind of a basic package
for everyone. It doesn't matter how rich you

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are etcetera. And there is a certain amount
of money you have to pay for that. For a normal

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citizen that's which you have to pay privately
is about 100 euros a month.

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Do you have the same health insurance as a
senator as say my cameraman Bas?

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Absolutely. Yeah. The same hospitals, same doctors.

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In 2006 it was determined by law that no family
in the Netherlands could spend more than 5%

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of their income in healthcare.
Do you have the health insurance CEOs making

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millions like in the US.
No, no, no, no. There is a law that states

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that everybody who works with public money,
and healthcare is considered to be public

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money, is not allowed to earn more than the
prime minister.

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The Dutch national healthcare system provides
a comprehensive policy which covers a very

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broad range of treatments that even includes
gender reassignment.

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When you feel like you're transgender you
go to the VU Medical Center Hospital here

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in the Netherlands. They have a gender team,
the biggest gender team in the world I believe,

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and then you have access to hormones if you
desire, to surgeries if you desire that are

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covered by your Healthcare which is amazing.
And you don't have people protesting saying

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I don't want to pay for that?
No.

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Interestingly, the VU University Medical Center
used to be a Christian Hospital it has a Christian

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background and here was where it started in
the 1970s. And it’s said it's out of a sort

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of gratefulness, maybe even because it were
Christian doctors working here that it could happen here.

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If you live in a space as we do where it’s

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relatively safe of course there's also hate
crimes here of course there's also violence

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here but the social space is safer for trans people.

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It's increasing every year like many countries
and in some countries it's even increasing

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100% every year. So that's what we also see,
very sharp increase in referrals.

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I really like your story about the humor.
Yeah, it’s awful.

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The people laughing at your jokes more now.
Yeah.

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While they’re the same jokes.
While they’re the same stupid jokes.

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How old do you have to be?
So that's what the VU Medical Center is actually

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famous for is treating kids.

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We also see the young ones before puberty,

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but we only see them most of the time for
it for just diagnostic and a short advice.

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And then they have this revolutionary treatment
of hormone blockers, puberty blockers.

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I think here in the Netherlands we were the
first that started providing blockers.

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It has come to be called The Dutch approach.
What do the blockers do?

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So they block puberty development and once
you stop the blockers puberty from the birth

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assigned sex will start again. So it's a fully
reversible treatment, but at the same time

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you don't develop the sex characteristics of
the gender you don't experience yourself in.

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Coverage of gender reassignment surgery is

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part of a larger acceptance for alternatives
to traditional gender definitions in the Netherlands

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and Dutch courts have ruled that parents no longer have
to specify a gender on their children's birth certificates.

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LGB population.

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LGBT you should say nowadays.

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LGBTQ.

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LGBTQ…I.

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Intersex is being born with more or less.

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Ambiguous...Ambiguous...

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No. Because then it gets binary again.

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Why should we actually have genders?

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Maybe we should skip it all together and just talk
about people.

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There are 4 basic models for healthcare around the world.

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Single-payer healthcare delivers 100% coverage

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by having the government provide and pay for
healthcare through taxes, just like public education.

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The government pays doctors, hospitals,
and drug costs, keeping expenses down.

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It's used in countries like the UK, Spain, and
throughout Scandinavia.

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Single-payer Insurance achieves 100% coverage
by having the government run a single health

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insurance program that everyone pays into.
Since there is only one insurance company

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they have low overhead and can negotiate better prices.

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It's used in countries like Canada, Taiwan, and South Korea.

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Social health insurance provides 100% coverage

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using a private insurance system financed
by employers, workers, and taxes.

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Though healthcare is private, the system is not for profit
and tightly regulated which keeps costs down.

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It's used in countries like Germany, Japan,
and the Netherlands.

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(Beep) the poor healthcare.

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In poor countries
patients pay for whatever they can afford.

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The basic rule is that the rich get treatment
while the poor get sick and die.

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It's how it is in most of Africa, India, China, and
South America

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The maximum inefficiency model.

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The US is the only developed country that doesn't provide

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universal healthcare. It's also the country
that spends the most on healthcare by far.

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Many workers get insurance through their jobs,
the elderly use Medicare, veterans have the VA,

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and the destitute use Medicaid. Everyone
else gets access to a doctor if they can raise

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money on GoFundMe.

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Where did the Netherlands’ reputation
for tolerance come from?

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It started already in the 17th century in. Holland has as it’s called
its “Golden Age” where it started practically to rule

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the world as merchants. Not so much as an
imperial power, but as merchants, because

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it was a republic, cities were important and
in the cities the merchants the big merchants

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were the boss and merchants don't like conflicts
because that's bad for business.

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To learn about the Netherlands’ Golden Age,
I headed over to the country's national art

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museum, the Rijksmuseum.
Well the Golden Age is say roughly from the

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late 1500s until the late 1600s. We generally
refer to it as like the 17th Century, but

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the real power was roughly between 1620 and
1670. Our saints are the painters of the Golden Age.

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Frans Hals and Jan Steen, Johannes Vermeer,
the big guys from the 17th Century. But in

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the same belief system there's only one God
and that is Rembrandt runs right up there

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in the place where in an actual church you
would find the altar. That sacred space is

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reserved for this museum for the Night Watch.

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And this is a bust of a mayor called Andries de Graeff
and the way he poses tells you everything about the obsession

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we have in the Golden Age and that is the Roman Empire,
the republic as a state form. Y’know they have the renaissance

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body language, the renaissance elbow. This
is power. If you’re with your hand like

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this it’s always power.
I’m going to remember that.

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Yeah, you have to do it. If you want to imitate
Mussolini you need both hands for that.

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I don't know if I want to go that far.
Well you have the same hairdo.

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But for some people the Golden Age wasn't so golden.

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The Dutch, they don't want to acknowledge
that their Golden Age was financed a lot by

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slavery and that's why Surinamese people are here.

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A lot of the Dutch youth,

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they don't even know why Surinamese people are here.

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Did you guys learn about the history of the
Dutch slave trade at school?

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Yeah, we did.
You did?

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Yeah, we did. We got all the history of the
Netherlands from start to finish until now

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but the slave trade is a really painful topic
so you get it. This is how it was and

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why we did it. Next topic.

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Are there any paintings that deal with the slave trade?
No, we do have some artworks that deal with

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slavery as such but we have to go down one floor
for that. That's in the 19th century department,

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the last century we still owned Suriname.

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So slavery is more here in this corner.

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So out of the whole museum this is all you have on slavery?

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Yes, it is quite small.
Doesn’t that seem strange to you?

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Of course it’s so easy to use Rembrandt
as a banner and show all the greatness and

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the good things we have done. But the Dutch
are more and more trying to get to terms with

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the dark side of their history very much spurred
on by people who are really vocal about it.

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I learned about the Golden Age. I learned
about how rich the Netherlands was, but I

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never learned the downside of it. I never
learned about how Amsterdam is also built

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with slave money, and that is something that's
resurfacing. That's something that is being

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taught. There is a lot of awareness being created.

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To find out more about the black experience
in Holland, I went to talk to an old friend,

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Guilly Koster. As usual, it was hard to get
him to tell me what he really thought.

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I have a vlog and this vlog is called “Fok Jou.”

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All of the black men I know, and they're not
criminals, we are just being picked on. Even

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if you're the goalkeeper of the Dutch national
team, the police will stop you and ask you

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why are you driving a Mercedes.

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One major flashpoint for racial tensions is

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the Dutch custom known as Zwarte Piet, or
Black Pete, who is supposed to be Saint Nicholas’s

250
00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:54.640
black sidekick. As part of Dutch Christmas
celebrations many people dress up in blackface,

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and black people aren't too happy about it,

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The words silly and unrealistic work were redefined when I learned
that Saint Nicholas travels with what was consistently described

253
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as 6 to 8 black men. I asked several Dutch
people to narrow it down, but none of them

254
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could give me an exact number. It was always
six to eight which seems strange seeing as

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they’ve had hundreds of years to get a decent
count. The six to eight black men were characterized

256
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as personal slaves until the mid-50s when
the political climate changed, and it was

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decided that instead of being slaves they
were just good friends. I think history is

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proven that something usually comes between
slavery and friendship. A period of time marked

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00:21:38.769 --> 00:21:45.009
not by cookies and quiet times beside the
fire but by bloodshed and mutual hostility.

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You can have the biggest fight about Zwarte
Piet here in The Netherlands. The biggest

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00:21:50.620 --> 00:21:56.074
fight. The biggest controversy about a … schlemiel.

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So it was like the 5th of December. You know the night where we're
supposed to open up all the presents. Zwarte Piet is going to

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come and bring a stack of gifts, and we had
a ring on the doorbell. My daughter whips open

264
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the door, and there standing in the door is
Stanley the Surinamese guy who delivers packages

265
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on our block. My daughter she's like awwww,
and I'm trying to get to the door before she

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gets there. I’m like nooooo. And my daughters
like Zwarte Piet! And y’know, the American

267
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in me was thinking like my god my daughter is a racist.

268
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My mom used to tell us this is a weird tradition.
Don't, don't, don't, don't, you know take

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whatever you want to take the gifts and stuff,
but this is really weird. You need to know

270
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that this is not okay. So I was raised with
that notion, and the uncles, the black men

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in the refugee camp, would be like ‘oh my
god there we go again every year.'

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But public opinion on Black Pete is rapidly
changing and the general consensus seems to

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be that it's time for him to evolve.

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It isn't hallelujah here in the Netherlands.

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There are some racial problems, but overall
if you look at all the other countries it's

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best to be in in Holland in to be a Dutch woman.

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I still think that The Netherlands is the best.

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And why is that?
I love this country. I'm happy with our healthcare

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system. I'm happy with the political system.
I'm happy with our educational system. And

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I'm happy with the fact that there are possibilities
to work on all these levels.

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00:23:23.157 --> 00:23:29.159
In my opinion there's two types of integration. You have
the melting pot. You give up who you are and

282
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I give up who I am and we become something
new, we melt together. This is what we have

283
00:23:34.309 --> 00:23:41.289
been trying, but it's not working. So I suggest
we try the salad bowl model where the carrot

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is the carrot and the tomato the tomato the
onion the onion, and we're still in this big

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00:23:45.639 --> 00:23:52.019
bowl together and say ‘oh you're the onion.
Fine I'm the tomato. Let's meet. Let's make

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00:23:52.019 --> 00:23:57.809
the salad. You know let's live together.' Rather
than becoming I want to become a tomato.

287
00:23:57.809 --> 00:24:02.309
An onion is never going to become a tomato.
I'm okay with this as long as we can get rid

288
00:24:02.309 --> 00:24:06.990
of the capers.
The capers yeah. Motherfuckers need to get out.

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00:24:18.919 --> 00:24:23.379
One of the things Holland is well known for
is its legalized prostitution with a visit

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00:24:23.379 --> 00:24:28.970
to the red light district a common tourist
attraction. But like many old Dutch institutions

291
00:24:28.970 --> 00:24:31.365
prostitution also has been changing.

292
00:24:32.265 --> 00:24:34.490
Prostitution is legal, but only in a very

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00:24:34.499 --> 00:24:41.509
small frame. We have a system where city councils
are allowed to create their own rules within

294
00:24:41.509 --> 00:24:45.409
a certain frame and that makes it for a lot
of sex workers impossible to be an independent

295
00:24:45.409 --> 00:24:49.200
sex worker in the city they live in. Here
in Amsterdam you can only work behind the

296
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:53.539
window as an independent sex worker, and you
can work from a brothel, but then you need

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00:24:53.539 --> 00:24:58.019
to work under the license of the brothel owner.
But if you want to be like an independent

298
00:24:58.019 --> 00:25:02.729
sex worker working from your own home or in
your own home that's something that's not

299
00:25:02.729 --> 00:25:08.240
allowed. There are 292 windows left and we're
coming from around 400.

300
00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:11.669
And what's behind the move to reduce the number of windows?

301
00:25:11.669 --> 00:25:17.230
We say gentrification. The city council says
human trafficking, but there wasn’t really

302
00:25:17.230 --> 00:25:23.179
a legal base to do that so a lot of brothel
owners were just bought out with tax money.

303
00:25:23.179 --> 00:25:27.609
Are people okay with that?
Yeah, because if you frame it as fighting

304
00:25:27.609 --> 00:25:32.859
human trafficking, people are easy to stand
with that claim, but a lot of sex workers

305
00:25:32.859 --> 00:25:39.909
lost their window and to us it's very problematic.
In 2000 we had the ban on brothels lifted

306
00:25:39.909 --> 00:25:46.269
and we saw that there were around 1,300 licensed
places and now we are around 700.

307
00:25:46.269 --> 00:25:53.139
So instead of having more safe, legal places
to work we are having less of those spaces

308
00:25:53.139 --> 00:25:57.809
and we are not allowed to create our own work
and create our own businesses on our own terms.

309
00:25:57.809 --> 00:26:01.240
So that's problematic, and we try to get rid
of that law.

310
00:26:01.240 --> 00:26:05.000
Interestingly, Yvette’s organization is
partially funded by the government.

311
00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.580
We’ve got a big project fund from our ministry
of safety and justice.

312
00:26:09.580 --> 00:26:11.429
And they give you money?
Yes.

313
00:26:11.429 --> 00:26:16.559
Well that's kind of cool.
That is kind of cool and it’s also, it’s

314
00:26:16.559 --> 00:26:23.240
very important if you want to have a healthy and
meaningful policy on sex work you have to include sex workers.

315
00:26:23.920 --> 00:26:26.365
Prostitution in the Netherlands is regulated.

316
00:26:26.529 --> 00:26:31.639
In most cities you will need a license to
operate legally, and it means that we have

317
00:26:31.639 --> 00:26:36.100
to follow a very strict rules. There are a
lot of measures that the Amsterdam city council

318
00:26:36.100 --> 00:26:42.029
took to make sure that everybody that works
in prostitution does so out of their own free will.

319
00:26:42.029 --> 00:26:47.169
And there's also a lot of responsibility
for the people that for example have an escort

320
00:26:47.169 --> 00:26:50.509
agency or that own a club.
How much does it cost?

321
00:26:50.509 --> 00:26:57.090
It start with 2 hours and for two hours a
client pays 700 Euros and then it can go up

322
00:26:57.090 --> 00:27:01.190
to well like whatever.
Do you take credit cards?

323
00:27:01.190 --> 00:27:03.782
We do, with a 10% service charge.

324
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Probably the biggest factor in the slow demise of Holland's red light district
is the same thing that's disrupting every industry - the internet.

325
00:27:13.615 --> 00:27:16.389
When we first started, the internet was like

326
00:27:16.389 --> 00:27:20.989
a small thing so then you had the Yellow Pages.
The Yellow Pages were really like the main

327
00:27:20.989 --> 00:27:24.509
communication means at that time and now of
course it’s the internet.

328
00:27:25.157 --> 00:27:30.690
How do you get your clients?
From an advertisement on Kinky.nl

329
00:27:30.690 --> 00:27:34.940
Is that where most people advertise?
Oh yeah it is a very busy there.

330
00:27:34.940 --> 00:27:40.330
And what is your ad say?
25 year old trans girl. Come visit me. I have

331
00:27:40.330 --> 00:27:43.940
some nice of pictures also. Something like that.

332
00:27:43.940 --> 00:27:47.980
And how many emails do you get a day?
I think 60 messages.

333
00:27:47.980 --> 00:27:50.479
So you could be really busy if you wanted to.

334
00:27:50.479 --> 00:27:57.320
Yeah, but not everybody comes. And sometimes
it is just for 'I want to have a nice a conversation.'

335
00:27:57.320 --> 00:28:01.789
That doesn't bring me money.
You don't charge for conversation?

336
00:28:01.789 --> 00:28:04.159
No.
Why not? Maybe you should.

337
00:28:04.159 --> 00:28:06.907
Well that's another thing.

338
00:28:08.824 --> 00:28:16.779
Simona, Janey’s partner is, believe it or not, a former Italian
championship professional wrestler who moved to the Netherlands.

339
00:28:16.779 --> 00:28:23.899
When you have to get a window if you are in
the day it’s 80, 110 Euros. If you are in

340
00:28:23.899 --> 00:28:30.360
the night 140, 150. That means that you need
3, 4 customers only for pay the cost. So working

341
00:28:30.360 --> 00:28:32.365
at home is better.

342
00:28:32.538 --> 00:28:35.997
Is looking for a trans prostitute super popular?

343
00:28:36.149 --> 00:28:37.149
Yeah. It is.

344
00:28:37.149 --> 00:28:41.249
It is.
And I think it will be more over time.

345
00:28:41.249 --> 00:28:49.059
Why do you think that's so popular?
People are sick of a normal thing I think.

346
00:28:49.059 --> 00:28:53.869
They want something special, They want to
see a nice a woman and then with something

347
00:28:53.869 --> 00:28:57.365
special and so in this case it is my dick.

348
00:28:57.865 --> 00:29:00.690
The trans have more clients than the women.

349
00:29:00.690 --> 00:29:06.960
When I was working in the windows, the girls
had 1 and I had 4.

350
00:29:06.960 --> 00:29:13.859
Do you feel free here in the Netherlands?
Yeah. It is a good thing here.

351
00:29:13.859 --> 00:29:16.649
Have you experienced discrimination?
Oh yeah.

352
00:29:16.649 --> 00:29:19.559
Like what?
When I’m walking on the street and people

353
00:29:19.559 --> 00:29:24.759
say ‘hey man’ or ‘faggot’ or that kind of shit.

354
00:29:24.759 --> 00:29:28.470
Do you find it very much by the neighborhood?
Oh yeah.

355
00:29:28.470 --> 00:29:32.859
So what are the worst neighborhoods?
Basically where the Muslims are.

356
00:29:32.859 --> 00:29:36.960
They’re the ones calling you names?
Yeah they say everything to me.

357
00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:40.700
Do you feel unsafe?
For me, I don't feel unsafe there because

358
00:29:40.700 --> 00:29:47.907
I just a walking there and then do my thing.
But I can understand for many people they do.

359
00:29:48.157 --> 00:29:50.000
Are you mad at the Muslims?

360
00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:55.779
It is not mad, but that they are different
I think. They think like that okay. But the

361
00:29:55.779 --> 00:30:02.615
funny thing is the next day I have the same
men that is a calling me and want to fuck.

362
00:30:02.615 --> 00:30:03.929
So you get Muslim men?

363
00:30:03.929 --> 00:30:10.669
Oh yeah. A lot of them. A lot of them.
What percentage? Do you have any idea?

364
00:30:10.669 --> 00:30:13.907
I think 60%.

365
00:30:16.452 --> 00:30:18.907
What changes have you seen in the last 20 years?

366
00:30:19.282 --> 00:30:22.599
It’s much more conservative and also what’s

367
00:30:22.599 --> 00:30:28.389
really a very big difference is that now a
lot of the times when people talk about prostitution,

368
00:30:28.389 --> 00:30:34.450
they talk about human trafficking like it's
the same. But the service itself not that

369
00:30:34.450 --> 00:30:41.840
much changed actually. You know sex is sex
and sex was sex 20 years ago so not much difference

370
00:30:41.840 --> 00:30:47.129
in that. I still think it's an amazing business
and I really enjoy it … wonderful with the

371
00:30:47.129 --> 00:30:52.029
girls. We've got great clients. We’ve got
great staff. So even things might be getting

372
00:30:52.029 --> 00:30:57.629
a bit more difficult but it's still I mean
there's so much more pros than there are cons.

373
00:30:57.629 --> 00:31:01.399
It's part of my identity. It's part of my
career identity. It’s part of my sex positive

374
00:31:01.399 --> 00:31:07.019
identity. I’m a feminist. I feel much more
liberated often when I do sex work then when

375
00:31:07.019 --> 00:31:08.782
I do something else.

376
00:31:09.682 --> 00:31:10.682
I love my job.

377
00:31:10.710 --> 00:31:14.619
What do you say to people who say you can't
be happy doing a job like that?

378
00:31:14.619 --> 00:31:22.450
When people say me that I always say to them
I am like a psychologist. You go to them.

379
00:31:22.450 --> 00:31:29.979
You put out all your bad feelings, bad things
and the psychologist make you happy. I take

380
00:31:29.979 --> 00:31:33.190
other things from you, but in the end I make you happy.

381
00:31:33.190 --> 00:31:39.509
Yeah for me it is just a normal job, I mean
I sell my body and for example you are

382
00:31:39.509 --> 00:31:44.940
selling a cars or I don't know.
Well movies hopefully.

383
00:31:44.940 --> 00:31:48.032
Or movies … I don't know.

384
00:32:01.699 --> 00:32:09.220
Polderen they call it. You know … to look at it from all
sides and then to look at the best possible solution.

385
00:32:09.220 --> 00:32:13.590
Polders are pieces of land in between dykes
that have been reclaimed from the sea.

386
00:32:13.590 --> 00:32:18.429
For the Dutch they've come to represent a way
of working together to ensure common interests.

387
00:32:19.115 --> 00:32:24.139
The Dutch society was built up according to
pillars. Like you had the Catholics, you had

388
00:32:24.139 --> 00:32:28.400
the Protestants, you had the socialist and
then you had the liberals. But they all have

389
00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:35.490
to kind of work together so there’s this consensus
mentality where everybody gets a little bit.

390
00:32:35.949 --> 00:32:39.690
The landscape requires a good deal of common

391
00:32:39.690 --> 00:32:44.599
cause and so then you do have to overcome
your religious differences or you do have

392
00:32:44.599 --> 00:32:49.600
to overcome your class differences in order
to work together. So the Dutch, despite the

393
00:32:49.600 --> 00:32:53.909
fact, or maybe precisely because of the fact
that they were a kaleidoscope different convictions

394
00:32:53.909 --> 00:33:00.782
had to find ways to work together nevertheless and defend
themselves against common enemies including the water.

395
00:33:02.074 --> 00:33:03.690
But not everyone likes the polder model.

396
00:33:04.365 --> 00:33:07.779
The polder model sucks and we have to get rid of that.

397
00:33:07.779 --> 00:33:13.090
Marianne Thieme is the chairperson of the
Party for the Animals, the world's first political

398
00:33:13.090 --> 00:33:17.032
party that represents the rights of animals
other than humans.

399
00:33:30.369 --> 00:33:36.269
Traditional politicians do not have the answers
for the current problems. I call them fossil

400
00:33:36.269 --> 00:33:43.960
politicians. The politicians are dictated
by the GDP. We want to get rid of this index.

401
00:33:43.960 --> 00:33:50.529
The index should be safety, health, the index
of happiness, the index of sustainability.

402
00:33:50.529 --> 00:33:56.260
And that will change our way of thinking.
We've got two seats in the senate and 5 in

403
00:33:56.260 --> 00:34:03.449
the lower house and then 45 in regional parliaments,
city councils. So yeah, we are growing.

404
00:34:03.865 --> 00:34:11.290
By focusing on animal rights and by focusing
on our food one touches a lot of other big

405
00:34:11.290 --> 00:34:17.109
problems in the world. The fact that the factory
farming industry is one of the major contributors

406
00:34:17.109 --> 00:34:23.000
to greenhouse gas emissions, to biodiversity
loss, to a manure problem that's got out of

407
00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:29.810
hand. If you try to save an animal life at
the same time you try to save a human life.

408
00:34:29.810 --> 00:34:31.990
In fact you try to save the planet.

409
00:34:31.990 --> 00:34:34.649
In the US party animal means something totally different.

410
00:34:34.649 --> 00:34:39.115
I know, but we like to party as well, so it’s no problem.

411
00:34:39.574 --> 00:34:41.879
Thanks in part to the Party for the Animals,

412
00:34:41.879 --> 00:34:46.649
the Dutch have some of the strongest animal
rights legislation in the world. They've also

413
00:34:46.649 --> 00:34:53.240
received a lot of attention because they no
longer have any stray dogs and every shelter is no kill.

414
00:34:53.490 --> 00:34:58.460
In Holland, municipalities became
responsible for animals

415
00:34:58.460 --> 00:35:05.490
on the street. So it means when someone sees
a cat or a dog without an owner, the municipality

416
00:35:05.490 --> 00:35:09.657
has to take care of it and so they are paying
the shelters.

417
00:35:11.449 --> 00:35:13.650
Do they have an animal party in the us?

418
00:35:13.650 --> 00:35:17.130
I don't know.
I don’t think so.
I don’t think so.

419
00:35:17.130 --> 00:35:19.907
We barely have a party for humans in the US.

420
00:35:22.630 --> 00:35:27.140
Farm animals have a significant effect on
climate change, especially for the Dutch,

421
00:35:27.140 --> 00:35:33.907
because the Netherlands is the world's second largest
exporter of agricultural products after the United States.

422
00:35:34.865 --> 00:35:36.260
I just came back from the amazon and there's

423
00:35:36.260 --> 00:35:42.329
a lot of soy being exported. Most of the soy
goes to china to feed the 700 million pigs

424
00:35:42.329 --> 00:35:47.240
in china. But the second destination for soy
from the amazon is The Netherlands because

425
00:35:47.240 --> 00:35:53.980
there’s about a hundred million animals
kept here. The Netherlands imports soy from brazil

426
00:35:53.980 --> 00:35:58.615
that grows in brazil on an area size of half of the Netherlands.

427
00:35:58.615 --> 00:36:02.699
Beef is the main cause of global deforestation in the world.

428
00:36:03.408 --> 00:36:05.740
20 years ago I think people quite rightly

429
00:36:05.750 --> 00:36:09.391
saw The Netherlands as one of the advanced
countries on environmental issues. I have

430
00:36:09.391 --> 00:36:13.840
to say I think we lost that position. There
is there is no … at least if you look at

431
00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:18.589
it from government policies or ambitions and
all that. In any research that is conducted

432
00:36:18.589 --> 00:36:23.250
by the European union on the state of environment
we are always at the bottom.

433
00:36:23.250 --> 00:36:27.059
What happened to Dutch environmental policies
in the last 20 years?

434
00:36:27.059 --> 00:36:31.831
I think are two important factors. And one
is sort of what you saw a globally especially

435
00:36:31.831 --> 00:36:36.260
after 9/11 also in the Netherlands there was
a rise of populism. And there was sort of

436
00:36:36.260 --> 00:36:43.210
the swing to the right. And I think the other
thing is what people underestimate is the

437
00:36:43.210 --> 00:36:48.880
Netherlands is a truly deeply fossil fuel-based
country. Shell is Dutch company. We have the

438
00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:53.651
largest petrochemical ports in Europe. We
have the largest gas reserve in Europe. We

439
00:36:53.651 --> 00:36:57.074
have one of the biggest transport industries.

440
00:36:57.299 --> 00:37:01.240
I'm a friend of the then CEO of Shell, Jeroen van der Veer,

441
00:37:01.240 --> 00:37:07.630
and he and I talked a lot in
the 90s and early 2000s when he became CEO

442
00:37:07.630 --> 00:37:13.339
and he really set up a whole division for
sustainability within Shell. And it was only

443
00:37:13.339 --> 00:37:18.839
that the shareholders said no no this is too
costly. A significant part of our climate

444
00:37:18.839 --> 00:37:25.579
agenda moved into a adaptation, and over the last
10 years billions are now being invested

445
00:37:25.579 --> 00:37:30.450
in protecting our country against sea level rise.
I'm a coastal engineer. I say, OK, maybe

446
00:37:30.450 --> 00:37:35.579
we can manage one meter, maybe we can manage
2 meters. But whether we could manage 4 meters

447
00:37:35.579 --> 00:37:41.070
or 6 meters, this even looks to me beyond
control. I'm optimistic, but on sea level

448
00:37:41.070 --> 00:37:43.824
rise there is no reason to be optimistic.

449
00:37:45.537 --> 00:37:47.819
But the environmental news isn't all bad.

450
00:37:48.490 --> 00:37:53.180
The climate change commitments of Dutch banks
are good compared to many of their peers.

451
00:37:53.180 --> 00:37:57.630
So we are happy, for example, that ING, by
far the largest Dutch bank, has committed

452
00:37:57.630 --> 00:37:59.907
to not finance the coal sector any longer.

453
00:38:00.478 --> 00:38:03.240
We have together with Norway the biggest number

454
00:38:03.260 --> 00:38:08.849
of electric cars. We have the biggest number
of charging stations. We have the highest

455
00:38:08.849 --> 00:38:13.049
rate of recycling of all kinds of materials
be it paper, glass, and plastic.

456
00:38:13.049 --> 00:38:17.210
I don’t know if you saw the movie that was
put out, that the Dutch railways put out.

457
00:38:17.210 --> 00:38:23.220
You should look for it. You see the CEO of
the Dutch railway companies tied to one of

458
00:38:23.220 --> 00:38:28.615
the old traditional windmills and he's saying
look we’re 100% wind power let's go.

459
00:38:52.440 --> 00:38:56.450
One of the more interesting developments in
Dutch environmental policy comes from the

460
00:38:56.450 --> 00:39:01.090
trailblazing Urgenda case where a group of
environmentalists took the Dutch government

461
00:39:01.090 --> 00:39:05.460
to court for failing to meet its climate change obligations.

462
00:39:05.460 --> 00:39:10.289
In the last 20 years we have had many right-wing
governments that thought that the market should

463
00:39:10.289 --> 00:39:15.119
do the work and the market doesn't do this
work. And then it was a member of our think

464
00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:20.880
tank, Roger Cox, wrote a book that's called
Revolution Justified, and in this book he

465
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:26.309
makes the analysis that it’s needed to prevent
climate change much quicker than we do right

466
00:39:26.309 --> 00:39:31.150
now and that the only democratic way that
he could see that could still function was

467
00:39:31.150 --> 00:39:36.270
to go to court. And actually nobody in the
Netherlands and abroad expected that we would

468
00:39:36.270 --> 00:39:41.780
win. But we won and then within half an hour
it was all over the world that the judge has

469
00:39:41.780 --> 00:39:45.970
said that the that the Dutch government should
do 25% less CO2.

470
00:39:45.970 --> 00:39:50.299
Urgenda’s victory is the first time that
a judge has legally required a government

471
00:39:50.299 --> 00:39:55.380
to act on climate change. It's transformed
the debate in Holland and inspired similar

472
00:39:55.380 --> 00:39:59.540
cases in many other countries including the
United States.

473
00:39:59.540 --> 00:40:04.299
There is an enormous urgency to stay below
1.5 degree, and then we should really be on

474
00:40:04.299 --> 00:40:10.700
zero fossil fuels in 2030. Is it easy? No
of course not. It’s an enormous task and

475
00:40:10.700 --> 00:40:15.180
it will demand a lot from everybody. But it’s
still possible and in 15 years’ time it’s

476
00:40:15.180 --> 00:40:17.657
not possible anymore. Then we are too late.

477
00:40:18.522 --> 00:40:22.032
I made an agreement with my wife to protect

478
00:40:22.050 --> 00:40:30.170
my relation. And I promised her I will stop
drinking in 2030, I will stop smoking in 2040,

479
00:40:30.170 --> 00:40:38.590
and I will quit with my girlfriend in 2050.
This relation is the relation between the

480
00:40:38.590 --> 00:40:42.849
humanity and planet earth which is fixed in Paris.

481
00:40:42.907 --> 00:40:49.199
Maybe if you give up your girlfriend first you can save your
marriage and then give up drinking and smoking later.

482
00:40:49.907 --> 00:40:52.700
Holland 100 years ago we were heating our

483
00:40:52.700 --> 00:40:57.559
houses with coal. Then we found the gas, and
then the government said hey that's a good

484
00:40:57.559 --> 00:41:03.170
idea. Do you have any idea how many years
does it need to put every house in Holland

485
00:41:03.170 --> 00:41:07.319
from coal to gas? It was ten years. So it's
possible.

486
00:41:08.074 --> 00:41:13.660
If you think about projects before like Project
Manhattan or Project Apollo, when those started

487
00:41:13.660 --> 00:41:19.240
the technology nor the funds were available
to do what they had set out to do. And I think

488
00:41:19.240 --> 00:41:24.690
with this project we have the technology we
have sufficient means financially to actually

489
00:41:24.690 --> 00:41:28.830
fix this planet … to take the plastic out
of the ocean, to put the fish back, to heal

490
00:41:28.830 --> 00:41:32.930
the soil of this planet, and to take out of
the air what doesn't belong there. It's completely

491
00:41:32.930 --> 00:41:36.865
doable from a technological and financial
point of view. We just need to do it.

492
00:42:20.750 --> 00:42:27.800
One feet before the entrance of the coffee
shop if your frisked, your fucked. One foot

493
00:42:27.800 --> 00:42:34.480
inside the coffeeshop, you’re okay. It works,
and it’s been working now since 1976.

494
00:42:34.480 --> 00:42:39.970
The Dutch marijuana policy is known as gedogen,
which can be roughly translated as tolerating

495
00:42:39.970 --> 00:42:44.119
something you don't like. There are hundreds
of licensed coffee shops where marijuana is

496
00:42:44.119 --> 00:42:47.740
sold, but technically marijuana is still illegal.

497
00:42:47.740 --> 00:42:50.074
We do get regular checkups. They can walk

498
00:42:50.090 --> 00:42:55.430
in here and they will search the premises,
they will frisk us, but only after we've given

499
00:42:55.430 --> 00:42:58.560
written permission.
And what if you don't sign that paper?

500
00:42:58.560 --> 00:43:05.470
They get upset. But one has to consider that
the product itself is still illegal.

501
00:43:05.470 --> 00:43:10.250
Anyone who is handling the product outside
of the coffee shops is liable to be arrested

502
00:43:10.250 --> 00:43:13.170
and thrown in jail.
Does that really happen?

503
00:43:13.170 --> 00:43:19.549
I don't want to say it, but we probably have
the most laid-back and laziest police force

504
00:43:19.549 --> 00:43:20.865
in the western world.

505
00:43:21.086 --> 00:43:23.199
The first year we grew a couple of kilos and

506
00:43:23.210 --> 00:43:29.200
the second year we had a thousand female plants
there. And then we were busted by one policeman

507
00:43:29.200 --> 00:43:33.480
who came up on his bicycle and he said ‘well
guys I don't know what you're doing out here.’

508
00:43:33.480 --> 00:43:38.349
And we were saying ‘oh, we are enjoying
the outside life and we like to grow vegetables.’

509
00:43:38.349 --> 00:43:42.440
He said ‘don’t give me that bullshit.
I don't know what you're doing here and I

510
00:43:42.440 --> 00:43:46.849
don't want to know it either.’ And we were
like ‘oh okay.’ And then he said ‘bye-bye.’

511
00:43:46.849 --> 00:43:50.630
And the whole thing took maybe 15 minutes,
and we were busted.

512
00:43:51.282 --> 00:43:57.119
Wernard Bruinig is a legendary figure in Dutch
marijuana circles because in the 1970s he

513
00:43:57.119 --> 00:43:59.990
opened the very first coffee shop called Mellow Yellow.

514
00:44:00.330 --> 00:44:03.157
The problem with cannabis are the people who
don't use it.

515
00:44:05.449 --> 00:44:07.115
Maybe I should smoke pot again.

516
00:44:07.875 --> 00:44:11.324
I quit school and I joined a group of hippie friends.

517
00:44:11.449 --> 00:44:15.319
The smoking was free as long as you
could sell it to your friends. We gave them

518
00:44:15.319 --> 00:44:20.410
tea each time they came to visit us. And the
standard joke was y’know we should maybe

519
00:44:20.410 --> 00:44:26.339
charge money for the tea so that we don't
need to work for money. That was the basic

520
00:44:26.339 --> 00:44:32.630
idea behind starting a coffee shop. So in
1973 we started the coffee shop and one

521
00:44:32.630 --> 00:44:38.789
of us would sit in front of the bar pretending
he was just a visitor. And this person had

522
00:44:38.789 --> 00:44:44.650
a big bag in which he held several kinds
of hash and grass. The law didn't provide

523
00:44:44.650 --> 00:44:49.869
the possibilities to close down a shop just
because there was a customer inside who had

524
00:44:49.869 --> 00:44:55.809
a lot of hash or grass with him. This coffeeshop
was a huge success and we were also an example

525
00:44:55.809 --> 00:45:00.500
to a lot of other people who saw our success
and thought we can do it also and we can

526
00:45:00.500 --> 00:45:05.030
do it better. And we called ourselves the
green team. And the idea of the green team

527
00:45:05.030 --> 00:45:09.907
was to turn Holland into the Jamaica of Europe.
And that's what happened.

528
00:45:10.074 --> 00:45:15.615
Surprisingly there are a lot less Dutch marijuana
smokers then in California.

529
00:45:17.532 --> 00:45:22.282
That's certainly something to be proud of as a Californian.
From Berkeley.

530
00:45:30.174 --> 00:45:32.115
Wow …
Man …

531
00:45:33.074 --> 00:45:38.349
Paradise…
6 AM in the AMS. It doesn’t stop.

532
00:45:38.349 --> 00:45:44.089
It doesn’t stop. Everywhere hectares and
hectares of our greenhouse genetics. Look here.

533
00:45:44.175 --> 00:45:46.740
What a place. So much pot.

534
00:45:46.865 --> 00:45:51.449
This was the Strain Hunters world book of
guiness records for marijuana, that’s for sure.

535
00:45:52.449 --> 00:45:54.782
See you on the next i-report for Strain Hunters. Bye bye.

536
00:46:00.269 --> 00:46:04.640
Coffeeshops are technically illegal. We always
have been prosecuted when they catch us with

537
00:46:04.640 --> 00:46:08.430
more than 500 grams. They can take away your
license. They can cause all kinds of other

538
00:46:08.430 --> 00:46:15.029
problems. In the last 3 years, the last 20,
30 cases, the judge threw out the DA and said

539
00:46:15.029 --> 00:46:20.369
‘ok he’s guilty but I give 0 days prison.’
So now it’s a big riot. Even the justice

540
00:46:20.369 --> 00:46:24.440
minister is saying the judges are not allowed
to do this, because they're sitting on the

541
00:46:24.440 --> 00:46:28.789
chair of the legislator. But the judges said
‘listen you had 30 years to solve this problem.

542
00:46:28.789 --> 00:46:32.900
They're paying tax. We think they’re legal.
We think they’re contributing to society.

543
00:46:32.900 --> 00:46:35.550
You go organize it. We are not prosecuting
anymore.’

544
00:46:35.550 --> 00:46:38.900
Do you love what you do?
Yeah, I think I have the greatest job on earth.

545
00:46:38.900 --> 00:46:44.721
It’s so nice because it's very diverse.
You know I make movies, I make seeds, I travel

546
00:46:44.721 --> 00:46:50.240
a lot, I meet a lot of very interesting characters,
and I can be high at the same time.

547
00:46:51.990 --> 00:46:54.900
You can't sell mushrooms?
No. Not anymore.

548
00:46:54.900 --> 00:46:56.880
You sell truffles.
Yeah.

549
00:46:56.880 --> 00:46:59.500
What's the difference between a mushroom and
a truffle?

550
00:46:59.500 --> 00:47:04.470
It's the same organism only mushrooms are
the part the blooms above the ground, truffles

551
00:47:04.470 --> 00:47:09.550
are the part that grows in the ground. But
they did ban the mushrooms in 2008, so we

552
00:47:09.550 --> 00:47:14.699
only have now the truffles left. But it is the same
organism. It’s also the same active ingredient.

553
00:47:15.074 --> 00:47:16.339
So those are fresh?

554
00:47:16.339 --> 00:47:18.369
Yeah.
They're not dried?

555
00:47:18.369 --> 00:47:23.089
No because that's illegal. We cannot process
the product and drying is processing the product

556
00:47:23.089 --> 00:47:27.079
and by law that’s illegal.
I don't see how drying is processing.

557
00:47:27.079 --> 00:47:29.019
We either but …
That's the law …

558
00:47:29.019 --> 00:47:31.030
That's the law we have to follow.
How did they come up with that?

559
00:47:31.030 --> 00:47:32.865
I have no idea.

560
00:47:33.740 --> 00:47:36.157
Are there problems with psychedelic mushrooms here?

561
00:47:36.199 --> 00:47:37.824
There are with tourists.

562
00:47:37.949 --> 00:47:42.599
With tourists. Generally we see people
getting into trouble

563
00:47:42.599 --> 00:47:47.279
with especially mushrooms - magic mushrooms
as they’re called - in Amsterdam and it

564
00:47:47.279 --> 00:47:52.190
causes the first aid a lot of trouble. But
that's generally because they don't realize what

565
00:47:52.190 --> 00:47:57.640
sort of potency they have. If you look at
what's typical about the way Dutch people

566
00:47:57.640 --> 00:48:03.279
who take drugs look at drug use they're quite
responsible in how they deal with this. So

567
00:48:03.279 --> 00:48:09.220
they are aware of these risks and they try
to sort of use in a rather responsible way.

568
00:48:09.220 --> 00:48:15.009
We know that we should always tell them there
is no safe way of using drugs so be aware

569
00:48:15.009 --> 00:48:19.970
and you are taking risks, but if you are doing
so, do it as responsible as you can. And we

570
00:48:19.970 --> 00:48:23.199
sort of enable them to use as responsible
as possible.

571
00:48:23.449 --> 00:48:27.660
3 days a week you can come here and test your
ecstasy and other drugs. And we test them

572
00:48:27.660 --> 00:48:33.260
on the quality, so what's in it and how strong
is it. We have 32 testing facilities in the

573
00:48:33.260 --> 00:48:37.110
Netherlands which are all connected. So as
soon as we pick out a tablet that has something

574
00:48:37.110 --> 00:48:41.400
in it that shouldn't be in there then we started
warning system. So there's warnings going

575
00:48:41.400 --> 00:48:46.540
out on television, on the national news, and
through the internet, all the social media

576
00:48:46.540 --> 00:48:51.269
systems. But also we hang up posters in all
the clubs and parties so people know for example

577
00:48:51.269 --> 00:48:52.782
you can't use this pill.

578
00:48:53.606 --> 00:48:55.865
So the government is paying ...
Yeah.

579
00:48:55.865 --> 00:48:58.532
to test people's ecstasy tablets?
Yeah.

580
00:48:59.220 --> 00:49:03.289
What do you say to someone who says that that's
encouraging drug use.

581
00:49:03.289 --> 00:49:07.970
No, I don’t think that’s encouraging drug
use. We did research because of this and what

582
00:49:07.970 --> 00:49:13.119
a lot of those people said is that it actually
pointed out that ecstasy use was kind of risky

583
00:49:13.119 --> 00:49:17.789
because else why would you have to test an
ecstasy pill. Our ecstasy use in the Netherlands

584
00:49:17.789 --> 00:49:22.410
is quite as high as a lot people have experience
with ecstasy. But then ecstasy is not a substance

585
00:49:22.410 --> 00:49:27.670
which people get addicted to. But if you look
for example at heroin use and heroin addiction

586
00:49:27.670 --> 00:49:32.230
or opiate addiction that's very low in the
Netherlands. The good thing is about Dutch

587
00:49:32.230 --> 00:49:37.900
drug policy is that health goes first. Of
course certain drugs in the Netherlands are

588
00:49:37.900 --> 00:49:41.589
illegal, which means that you're not allowed
to sell them in and you're not allowed to

589
00:49:41.589 --> 00:49:45.549
have them on you, but as soon as you take
them it's not legal anymore. You can't be

590
00:49:45.549 --> 00:49:51.130
punished for that. We have the focus that we
don't want to marginalize the user. If someone

591
00:49:51.130 --> 00:49:56.260
has a problem with drugs you just want to
help them and not get them a rap sheet so

592
00:49:56.260 --> 00:50:00.240
that it's going to be more difficult to get
a job and they get into this negative spiral

593
00:50:00.240 --> 00:50:04.380
in which their addiction will start all kinds
of other problems. And the Dutch government

594
00:50:04.380 --> 00:50:07.782
has decided to stop that and to look at a
different way.

595
00:50:36.059 --> 00:50:40.859
So your show is funded by the government?
Yeah.

596
00:50:40.859 --> 00:50:45.420
Do you get into trouble for that?

597
00:50:45.420 --> 00:50:48.324
No, because it's for educational matters.
Yeah.

598
00:51:10.930 --> 00:51:17.490
I never had an orgasm before that episode, and
I discovered my orgasm. So yeah that was

599
00:51:17.490 --> 00:51:21.540
that was a pretty personal episode. And I
got a lot of response about that.

600
00:51:21.540 --> 00:51:28.230
It was my first time, and I want to discover
my inner whore I said. I want to discover

601
00:51:28.230 --> 00:51:30.074
my inner whore.

602
00:51:30.243 --> 00:51:33.157
Young people will experiment with sex and

603
00:51:33.160 --> 00:51:41.150
with drugs. Let’s not to put it in the taboo
atmosphere, but let's educate them and get

604
00:51:41.150 --> 00:51:47.869
it into the light so that people talk about
it instead of doing it secretly, dangerously,

605
00:51:47.869 --> 00:51:52.589
illegally. So I think that's a very noble
thing to do.

606
00:51:52.589 --> 00:51:57.039
Like next week we’re making an item about
ecstasy, and we're going to use it on television

607
00:51:57.039 --> 00:52:02.260
and we're going to show our young watchers
how to take it properly.

608
00:52:02.260 --> 00:52:11.420
Some of our episodes are really in your face.
So for example we have had some beautiful

609
00:52:11.420 --> 00:52:14.865
stories about … let's say ... anal sex.

610
00:52:14.865 --> 00:52:17.115
You’re discovering the world of the anus.

611
00:52:17.119 --> 00:52:23.579
Yeah. Anal stretching … fisting. And what
are the topics you are …

612
00:52:23.579 --> 00:52:26.030
You’re discovering the world of the anus.
Yeah.

613
00:52:26.030 --> 00:52:32.720
Does that mean that you meet a lot of assholes?
Uh … well, not yet, but I'm speaking with

614
00:52:32.720 --> 00:52:40.049
people now who are anus stretching, and I
really want to follow someone who wants to

615
00:52:40.049 --> 00:52:43.699
be fisted. Like fisting.

616
00:52:43.990 --> 00:52:50.615
Do you get any pressure from the government what
to make, what not to make, what they'd like to see,

617
00:52:50.615 --> 00:52:54.690
what they'd like you to stop showing?
No. No.

618
00:52:54.690 --> 00:52:56.210
Zero.
Zero.

619
00:52:56.210 --> 00:53:01.615
Spuiten & Slikken is so popular that it's
spawned a spinoff program called Drugslab.

620
00:53:10.710 --> 00:53:15.190
It's an educational show in which three hosts
are taking the drugs that the audience wants

621
00:53:15.190 --> 00:53:19.000
them to try so the audience don't have to
do it themselves.

622
00:53:19.449 --> 00:53:21.240
That’s the slogan.
Yeah, that’s the slogan.

623
00:53:21.240 --> 00:53:24.349
We use drugs so you don’t have to.
Do you wear a lab coat lab coat?

624
00:53:24.349 --> 00:53:29.824
A lab coat? No, we don’t. We’re not professors.
We thought about it, but no.

625
00:53:30.032 --> 00:53:31.290
Did you guys bring some drugs?

626
00:53:31.290 --> 00:53:33.839
No, we did not.
No, we didn’t.

627
00:53:33.839 --> 00:53:39.019
So this is the Dutch government paying to
show kids doing drugs on television?

628
00:53:39.019 --> 00:53:40.074
Exactly.

629
00:53:40.074 --> 00:53:42.949
What are some of the drugs you've
taken on Drugslab?

630
00:53:43.157 --> 00:53:46.449
Oh … a lot ... Yeah.

631
00:53:49.074 --> 00:53:50.824
Do you want me to make a list?
Sure.

632
00:53:50.824 --> 00:54:01.615
Okay. MDMA, ecstasy, cocaine, DMT, GHB, Salvia
Divinorum, 2CB psychedelic.

633
00:54:01.824 --> 00:54:03.880
Aren’t those are illegal?
Yeah.

634
00:54:03.880 --> 00:54:05.260
They are.
Yeah.

635
00:54:05.260 --> 00:54:08.990
So you’re doing something illegal on television.
Yeah.

636
00:54:10.074 --> 00:54:14.532
And you don't get into trouble for that?
Um … No.

637
00:54:15.220 --> 00:54:17.074
Aren't you running out of drugs to do?

638
00:54:17.920 --> 00:54:22.782
I don't think so, because there are a lot
of drugs.

639
00:54:24.782 --> 00:54:29.690
Openness about sex and sex education is a
hallmark of Dutch culture. Goedele Liekens

640
00:54:29.690 --> 00:54:34.970
is a sexologist and UN goodwill ambassador
for reproductive health who has a show on

641
00:54:34.970 --> 00:54:37.074
Dutch TV called Goedele on top.

642
00:54:46.803 --> 00:54:49.032
I'm a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations

643
00:54:49.049 --> 00:54:55.869
for UNFPA, so I travel a lot of around to
world talking about sexuality, sexual health,

644
00:54:55.869 --> 00:55:01.500
reproductive health, women's empowerment,
and I must say the Dutch really have a

645
00:55:01.500 --> 00:55:04.240
very good way of giving sex education.

646
00:55:05.887 --> 00:55:08.949
What age does sex education start in the Netherlands?

647
00:55:10.900 --> 00:55:12.407
Whenever you want to talk about it.

648
00:55:12.846 --> 00:55:15.407
When I'm having my little Dutch kids

649
00:55:16.151 --> 00:55:20.980
and we visit the US and they say ‘grandma,
grandma read us a story’ and it’s “Sammy the

650
00:55:20.980 --> 00:55:27.657
Supersperm.” Grandma’s like ‘oh well,
I don't know if that's appropriate.’

651
00:55:27.782 --> 00:55:33.529
My son’s in the second year of high school
now. And he’s just had about 6 months of

652
00:55:33.529 --> 00:55:36.950
sex ed. Like biology has been sex for like
months on end.

653
00:55:36.950 --> 00:55:42.279
At the age of 15, 16 when adolescents have
a boyfriend, or girlfriend and it seems to

654
00:55:42.279 --> 00:55:49.319
be a bit stable, Dutch parents are much more
likely to allow a sleepover. We want our children

655
00:55:49.319 --> 00:55:54.059
to be safe, but the Dutch parent would say
‘I know children can’t be controlled.

656
00:55:54.059 --> 00:55:59.910
I know they'll become sexually active no matter
what I do so I don't want it to happen in

657
00:55:59.910 --> 00:56:05.907
the bushes at night, somewhere at a dangerous
place, but if it happens I want it to happen in my house.

658
00:56:06.449 --> 00:56:08.829
The Dutch tend to lose their virginity later than

659
00:56:08.829 --> 00:56:12.549
other countries where they try and stop them
from losing it. They’re much better at using

660
00:56:12.549 --> 00:56:19.199
contraception and that's far lower teenage
pregnancy here as a result so if it's proven to work.

661
00:56:19.449 --> 00:56:22.140
The contraceptive use of Dutch women is extremely

662
00:56:22.140 --> 00:56:25.779
high. Sterilization is also high.
Both male and female.

663
00:56:25.779 --> 00:56:29.069
More male. So that’s what the Dutch guys
do well.

664
00:56:29.069 --> 00:56:33.869
The number of abortions in Dutch women is
very low. If you need it, you can have it.

665
00:56:33.869 --> 00:56:37.790
It’s paid for by the insurance system. The
whole thing is that you tried to prevent it

666
00:56:37.790 --> 00:56:43.049
by a good contraceptive practice. The number
of unwanted pregnancy and teenage pregnancies

667
00:56:43.049 --> 00:56:44.449
is extremely low.

668
00:56:44.888 --> 00:56:48.365
The more sex education they get,
the later young people

669
00:56:48.365 --> 00:56:52.859
will start to have sex, the less amount of
partners they will have, and the less amount

670
00:56:52.859 --> 00:56:59.490
of risk for STDs and unwanted pregnancies.
And a very important one, the less high is

671
00:56:59.490 --> 00:57:05.759
the risk for sexual harassment to be to become
someone who does it, or to become a victim

672
00:57:05.759 --> 00:57:08.240
so how many more reasons do we need?

673
00:57:09.822 --> 00:57:12.240
According to Reporters Without Borders the

674
00:57:12.240 --> 00:57:16.799
Netherlands is one of the highest ranked countries
in terms of free speech and freedom of the

675
00:57:16.799 --> 00:57:21.690
press. One of the organizations working to
keep it that way is the Pirate Party

676
00:57:21.690 --> 00:57:26.880
Do you feel like you're free here in the Netherlands?
We are quite free, especially if you compare

677
00:57:26.880 --> 00:57:31.079
it to other countries.
What's your vision of an ideal society?

678
00:57:31.079 --> 00:57:35.470
People's rights should be protected, and they
should have the freedom to organize themselves.

679
00:57:35.470 --> 00:57:38.779
Which country in the world comes closest to that?

680
00:57:38.779 --> 00:57:43.099
I think we come pretty close actually. The
nice thing I think about the Netherlands that

681
00:57:43.099 --> 00:57:47.769
we have less and less people in prison. We
don't have private prisons. We have more and

682
00:57:47.769 --> 00:57:53.574
more empty prisons, and now they're being
used as universities or to house refugees.

683
00:57:54.074 --> 00:57:58.720
We also see it with the Pirate Party as a
test that we have to empower people to

684
00:57:58.720 --> 00:58:03.880
not be tracked by large companies or governments.
So we also organize crypto parties in which

685
00:58:03.880 --> 00:58:09.460
we help people install applications which
are better. There are many lists of open source

686
00:58:09.460 --> 00:58:16.430
alternatives with which you do not get tracked.
Do you guys do ecstasy at the crypto parties?

687
00:58:16.430 --> 00:58:20.190
Not a crypto parties.
At the crypto after party?

688
00:58:20.190 --> 00:58:21.824
Some people do maybe.

689
00:58:31.231 --> 00:58:33.699
So when you go on a date do you go Dutch?

690
00:58:35.074 --> 00:58:39.782
Well I thought about that but yeah
… No. No.

691
00:58:40.282 --> 00:58:46.890
I ended up being called this honorary title
called “allochtoon” which is a wonderful

692
00:58:46.890 --> 00:58:53.480
term that you earn if you live here long enough.
Allochtoon … it's a word that Dutch people

693
00:58:53.480 --> 00:58:59.630
made up so that if you don't say it right
they know you're not from around here.

694
00:58:59.630 --> 00:59:05.029
I think the official definition is if one
of your both parents are born outside the

695
00:59:05.029 --> 00:59:10.509
Netherlands, then you are considered allochtoon.
Which you could say is migrant. But in a sense

696
00:59:10.509 --> 00:59:14.470
it's very strange because if you're born here
how can you be a migrant?

697
00:59:14.470 --> 00:59:19.099
Family members always call me and they’re
like ‘So is it true that drugs are free

698
00:59:19.099 --> 00:59:23.449
in your country?’ I’m like, they’re not free.
You can buy them, but they’re not free.

699
00:59:32.365 --> 00:59:34.559
In general, from the police they take you

700
00:59:34.559 --> 00:59:42.730
to asylum, to the camps, to everywhere, it
is perfect. Yeah. Everybody smiling. Everybody

701
00:59:42.730 --> 00:59:48.359
take care of you. This is a great. And to
take asylum in 2 months, 2 and 1/2 months,

702
00:59:48.359 --> 00:59:50.699
it is the fastest asylum in all Europe.

703
00:59:51.182 --> 00:59:53.740
Coming from a war torn country into this country

704
00:59:53.759 --> 00:59:57.559
the Netherlands has been like my safe haven.
I have relatives who were struggling in war

705
00:59:57.559 --> 01:00:02.059
torn countries who are trying to travel to
the west, so I was pretty lucky growing up

706
01:00:02.059 --> 01:00:06.960
in this country. But then with all of the
terrorist attacks happening all over the world

707
01:00:06.960 --> 01:00:10.032
my sense of safety has changed.

708
01:00:10.508 --> 01:00:13.407
As long as it went good nobody was complaining.

709
01:00:13.740 --> 01:00:19.380
When the economy went down end 70s early 80s
we started to hear these people are not adapted.

710
01:00:19.380 --> 01:00:22.880
But then again the economy went good during
the rest of the 80s. And then with the huge

711
01:00:22.880 --> 01:00:26.574
crisis and after 9/11 we have to have
a scapegoat.

712
01:00:39.369 --> 01:00:44.070
It kind of freaks out when we see the rise
of the right in Holland because Holland is

713
01:00:44.070 --> 01:00:47.980
so liberal and chilled out.
Part of it has to do with a we see everywhere

714
01:00:47.980 --> 01:00:55.410
and that is that the people who voted for
him were done with the traditional political

715
01:00:55.410 --> 01:01:00.859
leadership in this country. They saw them
as essentially giving Muslims or immigrants

716
01:01:00.859 --> 01:01:06.230
greater consideration than the interests of
hard-working Dutch people. And for that reason

717
01:01:06.230 --> 01:01:08.949
they voted for him in a vote of protest.

718
01:01:09.414 --> 01:01:12.032
Geert Wilders is a very astute politician

719
01:01:12.049 --> 01:01:17.700
you know. He keeps winning politician of the
year. Specifically the year 1933.

720
01:01:17.700 --> 01:01:22.730
Unlike right-wing populists in the US, in
Holland they are strong supporters of national

721
01:01:22.730 --> 01:01:27.380
healthcare and the welfare state and though
they always say that politics makes for strange

722
01:01:27.380 --> 01:01:32.282
bedfellows it was still surprising to hear
about Wilders support for gay rights.

723
01:01:33.059 --> 01:01:39.029
He's thinking the Muslims hate the gays. I
hate the Muslims, so I must love the gays.

724
01:01:39.029 --> 01:01:43.890
It works like this, and there's actually quite
a few right-wing LGBT friends of mine falling

725
01:01:43.890 --> 01:01:48.200
for this but …
So Geert Wilders loves the gays?

726
01:01:48.200 --> 01:01:50.980
Well I haven't seen him with one around him, but …

727
01:01:50.980 --> 01:01:57.599
In Holland, the right-wing parties and not
necessarily anti-gay. Often … Geert Wilders

728
01:01:57.599 --> 01:02:03.450
Freedom Party's pro-gay. And one of the first
populists in Holland Pim Fortuyn was gay himself.

729
01:02:03.450 --> 01:02:06.250
And the religious parties are not necessarily
anti-gay either.

730
01:02:06.250 --> 01:02:10.760
There is no politician in Holland who could
be homophobic. If they try, they will have

731
01:02:10.760 --> 01:02:15.079
huge problems. It's still different than
in many other countries here in the Netherlands.

732
01:02:15.740 --> 01:02:21.039
I'm also known as drag queen Jennifer Hopelezz.
Can I Google that and see what Jennifer Hopelezz

733
01:02:21.039 --> 01:02:23.657
looks like?
Yeah … very pretty.

734
01:02:25.032 --> 01:02:29.660
The liberal climate here is what really attracted
me to the country. We were the very first

735
01:02:29.660 --> 01:02:34.349
country and Amsterdam very first city where
gays and lesbians could marry. Six months

736
01:02:34.349 --> 01:02:38.480
after I came I met my husband and that's why
I stayed here all these years. We’ve been

737
01:02:38.480 --> 01:02:43.009
together 26, nearly 27 years.
How do you stay together with someone for

738
01:02:43.009 --> 01:02:47.490
26 years?
We don’t live together. That’s the number one secret.

739
01:02:48.282 --> 01:02:51.539
I came out very late. Around my 28th. And

740
01:02:51.539 --> 01:02:57.231
what I have always seen here is as a gay couple
you could do and have everything. In some

741
01:02:57.231 --> 01:03:02.829
subjects you have to deliver more paperwork,
it took a little bit longer maybe. But I

742
01:03:02.829 --> 01:03:08.069
think everything is the same between heterosexuals
and gay couples.

743
01:03:08.069 --> 01:03:13.049
The country has moved to the right, and I
think the world has moved to the right and

744
01:03:13.049 --> 01:03:17.069
I think Holland is still the most liberal
country in the world, but yeah it has got

745
01:03:17.069 --> 01:03:21.210
more conservative. In terms of AIDS prevention
we were really ahead of a lot of countries

746
01:03:21.210 --> 01:03:24.799
when it first hit. The education programs
were really good in Holland and the rates

747
01:03:24.799 --> 01:03:28.009
were fairly low compared to other countries,
but we’ve really stalled.

748
01:03:28.009 --> 01:03:35.099
I’m gay. I have a husband and I can’t
walk around town holding his hand or kissing

749
01:03:35.099 --> 01:03:40.990
him in public. I should to make it more clear
guys like us are gay as well, but you just don’t.

750
01:03:40.990 --> 01:03:45.249
While 15 years ago it wasn't a problem at all.

751
01:03:45.249 --> 01:03:52.157
I still see a lot more people having less and less
problems with the issue. Less and less homophobia.

752
01:03:52.324 --> 01:03:58.490
I think it is one of the best countries to
lead a gay a life I'm quite sure about.

753
01:03:58.490 --> 01:04:01.130
It’s not totally a gay paradise but it’s as good as it gets.

754
01:04:07.199 --> 01:04:09.480
I was working with students from different

755
01:04:09.480 --> 01:04:15.309
countries and one of them was like ‘I was
told that I had to have this Dutch cuisine

756
01:04:15.309 --> 01:04:21.749
kapsalon.’ Kapsalon is basically shawarma
with french fries and salad and cheese. So

757
01:04:21.749 --> 01:04:26.650
this American guy was telling me I have to
have this Dutch cuisine, and it was really

758
01:04:26.650 --> 01:04:32.560
interesting to me because it is Dutch. The
guy who made it up is a Moroccan guy who lived

759
01:04:32.560 --> 01:04:38.220
in Rotterdam. Identity is fluid, and I think
the Moroccans and the Dutch and the Somalis

760
01:04:38.220 --> 01:04:43.130
and the Pakistanis and Suriname and everyone
who lives in this country is also influencing

761
01:04:43.130 --> 01:04:44.699
that idea of identity.

762
01:04:44.995 --> 01:04:46.657
When we say in the Netherlands this is typical

763
01:04:46.670 --> 01:04:52.390
Dutch, I always ask myself what do you mean
with that. And it's still changing and that's

764
01:04:52.390 --> 01:04:57.630
something I've learned. In the beginning you
think will orange is the Dutch color, you

765
01:04:57.630 --> 01:05:02.249
know the tulip, the potato. And then you
study and you think potatoes are actually

766
01:05:02.249 --> 01:05:06.260
from southern America and the tulip is from
Turkey and what else is really Dutch. And

767
01:05:06.260 --> 01:05:08.970
then you can deconstruct what the culture
is made of.

768
01:05:08.970 --> 01:05:11.790
Is there anything in your mind that's typically
Dutch?

769
01:05:11.790 --> 01:05:13.407
Well the language, I think.

770
01:05:13.407 --> 01:05:16.032
The problem with Van Gogh is that if you would

771
01:05:16.039 --> 01:05:20.180
pronounce him by his Dutch name and say
‘Van Gogh’ nobody would recognize that

772
01:05:20.180 --> 01:05:22.032
you're talking about that artist.

773
01:05:22.032 --> 01:05:24.282
I'd like to say I can speak Dutch, but I don't

774
01:05:24.299 --> 01:05:27.865
like to speak Dutch because it makes my mouth
feel sad.

775
01:05:27.907 --> 01:05:35.460
That's not me. That’s Jonathan.
When I talk Dutch he thinks I'm a pig.

776
01:05:36.503 --> 01:05:39.074
(Clearing their throats.)

777
01:05:39.615 --> 01:05:44.490
The French used to say that Dutch is not a
language, it’s a problem with your throat.

778
01:05:44.532 --> 01:05:50.949
I visit Arnhem, Wagningen …
I’m sorry, Wagenin-gen?

779
01:05:51.175 --> 01:05:54.489
I think the Dutch actually pronounce it ‘nech-mech.’

780
01:05:54.489 --> 01:05:58.860
Do you do your porn in English or Dutch?
I do my porn in English. Especially

781
01:05:58.860 --> 01:06:02.660
my webcamming. I prefer not to speak Dutch.
Why is that?

782
01:06:02.660 --> 01:06:06.529
Because Dutch has very ugly words to describe
sexual desire.

783
01:06:06.907 --> 01:06:11.220
Are you learning Dutch?
No! It's an impossible, impenetrable fortress

784
01:06:11.220 --> 01:06:16.319
of language. My bass player says that he thinks
the Dutch just make it up as a joke on everybody

785
01:06:16.319 --> 01:06:21.324
else and that it’s just completely not a
language at all. They secretly all speak English.

786
01:06:31.369 --> 01:06:36.365
It seems like when you first come here that there
are more bicycles than people and that is exactly accurate.

787
01:06:51.240 --> 01:06:54.282
Do you ever participate in the world naked bike ride?

788
01:06:54.282 --> 01:07:02.657
No. I'm not allowed from my public affairs
person. But I like the initiative very much.

789
01:07:02.865 --> 01:07:06.359
We say there are about 13, 14 million cyclists

790
01:07:06.359 --> 01:07:13.269
in a country with 17 million people. We also
cycle towards a high age. We have every year

791
01:07:13.269 --> 01:07:17.880
maybe 10 or 20 80 plusers who die while riding
their bikes

792
01:07:17.880 --> 01:07:24.549
So the people are dying on their bicycles.
Yeah, or they fall down. Some of them die

793
01:07:24.549 --> 01:07:27.770
when they have a heart attack or stroke or
whatever.

794
01:07:27.770 --> 01:07:30.949
I'm not sure that's the best advertisement
for bicycling.

795
01:07:33.180 --> 01:07:35.960
There are a lot of bikes out there.
Yeah, that’s true.

796
01:07:35.960 --> 01:07:39.819
Does every kid come to school on a bike?
Walking, biking …

797
01:07:39.819 --> 01:07:42.509
Do you have a school bus system?
No.

798
01:07:42.509 --> 01:07:45.574
What happens if a kid's family can't afford
a bike?

799
01:07:48.130 --> 01:07:53.239
That's like saying people can’t breathe.
Everyone in Holland has a bike.

800
01:07:53.239 --> 01:07:59.130
My mom and dad also bike, and our Somali family
members in other countries are like ‘do

801
01:07:59.130 --> 01:08:04.170
you bike?’ Like my dad is 70 and my mom
is like this Somali lady with her dresses

802
01:08:04.170 --> 01:08:08.865
and they’re like ‘do you really bike?’ And my
mom’s like ‘yeah … how else do I get around?’

803
01:08:08.949 --> 01:08:10.880
Did you get a bicycle yet?

804
01:08:10.880 --> 01:08:16.870
No. No. I don't think also I will use the bicycle

805
01:08:16.870 --> 01:08:20.339
Don't they make you get a bicycle as part
of the asylum process?

806
01:08:20.339 --> 01:08:22.365
Yeah, they try.

807
01:08:22.490 --> 01:08:29.040
Queen Beatrix rode a bike and now our present
king also rides a bike and they also do it with the families.

808
01:08:29.040 --> 01:08:33.009
Everybody cycles here – even the Prime Minister.
It’s because we have a really egalitarian

809
01:08:33.009 --> 01:08:37.319
society. You’re very on the same level.
And I think this is one of the explanations,

810
01:08:37.319 --> 01:08:44.470
the reason why people like biking because
it keeps us all the same. We made choices,

811
01:08:44.470 --> 01:08:50.480
consistent choices over 30 years for giving
priority to slow mobility to bikes and pedestrians

812
01:08:50.480 --> 01:08:54.850
It's been point of pride for Houten that their
city has, for many years, won the Cyclists

813
01:08:54.850 --> 01:08:57.615
Union Cycling City of the Netherlands Award.

814
01:08:57.740 --> 01:09:02.240
Yeah, they used to be the bike city.
The top now is Nijmegen.

815
01:09:02.324 --> 01:09:06.450
Saskia told me that you lost your crown to Nijmegen.
Yeah.

816
01:09:06.450 --> 01:09:11.170
Is that true?
Well it's true of course. But we always say

817
01:09:11.170 --> 01:09:16.080
there is only one bicycle town in the world
and that's Houten. So I think that's just

818
01:09:16.080 --> 01:09:19.270
envy of all the others. But we are best for sure.

819
01:09:19.270 --> 01:09:23.450
Are you going to challenge the mayor of Nijmegen
to a bicycle race?

820
01:09:23.450 --> 01:09:29.532
Well I will win for sure. I don’t know if you’ve seen
the mayor of Nijmegen. I should say look him up.

821
01:09:29.949 --> 01:09:33.126
Dutch cyclists, they kind of behave like a

822
01:09:33.250 --> 01:09:40.000
swarm of sparrows. We anticipate to the cyclists
who are nearest to us. So if we see them going

823
01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:44.850
to the right we tend to follow because we
know probably there's something in front that

824
01:09:44.850 --> 01:09:50.699
I don't see but he sees so I follow. I really
strongly believe that builds a culture of trust.

825
01:09:52.615 --> 01:09:54.570
While bicycles make create a lot of trust

826
01:09:54.570 --> 01:10:00.040
in Dutch society, they're also the cause of
the country's leading annoyance.

827
01:10:00.040 --> 01:10:02.640
Have you had your bicycle stolen?
Sure.

828
01:10:02.640 --> 01:10:04.740
My bikes get stolen once a year.

829
01:10:04.740 --> 01:10:07.110
Yeah mine was stolen, I think 2 weeks ago.

830
01:10:07.324 --> 01:10:13.870
I've had two bikes stolen while I've been
here. Actually both in the last week.

831
01:10:13.870 --> 01:10:19.157
I don’t lock my bike for the last 2 months
and it's not stolen yet so it's a bit of a luck.

832
01:10:19.157 --> 01:10:20.510
Can you tell me where it is?

833
01:10:20.907 --> 01:10:22.115
So you can take it?

834
01:10:22.115 --> 01:10:25.074
Is there some kind of government agency where

835
01:10:25.080 --> 01:10:29.610
I can go as a tourist to get my money back
for my 2 stolen bikes?

836
01:10:30.910 --> 01:10:31.660
No.

837
01:10:32.907 --> 01:10:34.949
How many locks did you have in your bike?
One.

838
01:10:34.949 --> 01:10:37.420
On the next bike you should put two or three.

839
01:10:37.420 --> 01:10:41.090
Two or three? But that takes so long.
That's the thing. That's why we work less

840
01:10:41.090 --> 01:10:44.365
than Americans, so we have time to lock our
bikes basically

841
01:10:56.365 --> 01:11:01.400
According to the OECD, the Dutch work among
the least number of hours. So how does their

842
01:11:01.400 --> 01:11:07.030
system pay for so much time off?
It’s a welfare state. The highest taxation

843
01:11:07.030 --> 01:11:14.130
is 52% of your income. It goes with steps
up and I’m in the 52% bracket so I have

844
01:11:14.130 --> 01:11:16.730
to pay quite a lot.
Does that bother you?

845
01:11:16.730 --> 01:11:24.365
Uh yeah when I have to … No, it doesn't
bother me so much because you get a lot for that.

846
01:11:24.615 --> 01:11:26.580
The institutions and policies that the Nordic

847
01:11:26.580 --> 01:11:31.080
countries and the Netherlands have adopted
get you very good outcomes in the area of

848
01:11:31.080 --> 01:11:37.140
economic security, low poverty and equality
of opportunity, and they do just as well if

849
01:11:37.140 --> 01:11:41.820
not better than on lots of other outcomes
including economic growth, but also liberty,

850
01:11:41.824 --> 01:11:45.407
privacy, community, and many, many others.

851
01:11:46.990 --> 01:11:52.810
What do you say to someone who says that you're breeding laziness?
How?

852
01:11:52.810 --> 01:12:00.115
By having people work too little.
Oh…well the productivity levels were reasonable.

853
01:12:02.449 --> 01:12:04.710
Has Holland's expansive welfare state turned

854
01:12:04.710 --> 01:12:10.800
the Dutch into a nation of lackadaisical layabouts?
Apparently not. In fact, the Netherlands is

855
01:12:10.800 --> 01:12:14.550
ranked as one of the best countries to be
an entrepreneur.

856
01:12:14.550 --> 01:12:20.430
If you look at the World Economic Forum, we
are now number 5 in competitiveness. We are,

857
01:12:20.430 --> 01:12:24.920
after Germany, the greatest exporter in the
European union. If you look at the agriculture

858
01:12:24.920 --> 01:12:28.290
we are the second exporter in the world after
the United States

859
01:12:28.290 --> 01:12:34.290
In a society where government provides to
everyone some of these basic services and

860
01:12:34.290 --> 01:12:39.970
supports in the form of public insurance
programs we in fact can be more individualistic.

861
01:12:39.970 --> 01:12:45.440
A bit more government services and public
insurance programs can enhance rather than

862
01:12:45.440 --> 01:12:47.240
limit or subtract from freedom.

863
01:12:49.282 --> 01:12:52.350
The theory of capitalism.
You work hard, save

864
01:12:52.350 --> 01:12:58.020
up and buy two cows. You sell one and buy
a bull. Your herd multiplies, the economy

865
01:12:58.020 --> 01:13:00.407
grows, and society prospers.

866
01:13:01.240 --> 01:13:05.699
The reality of capitalism.
A multinational corporation forecloses

867
01:13:05.700 --> 01:13:10.580
on a farmer and repos 2 cows. It sells one
to a subsidiary company, leases it back to

868
01:13:10.580 --> 01:13:14.750
itself, and declares a tax loss. After giving
the remaining cow drugs to make it produce

869
01:13:14.750 --> 01:13:19.900
the milk of 4 cows, it executes a credit default
swap to buy 20 more cows and transfer the

870
01:13:19.900 --> 01:13:25.260
rights to 50 leveraged cows via a Panamanian
intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly

871
01:13:25.260 --> 01:13:29.390
owned by a Russian oligarch. Three people
who donated the most to the government win

872
01:13:29.390 --> 01:13:31.490
and everyone else loses.

873
01:13:32.990 --> 01:13:37.199
Social democracy.
To create more cow ownership all of the world's

874
01:13:37.210 --> 01:13:41.940
developed nations have evolved into social
democracies that mix free market capitalism

875
01:13:41.940 --> 01:13:47.390
with socialism, so the government runs important
public services like education, police and

876
01:13:47.390 --> 01:13:53.000
firefighters, the military, utilities, pensions,
and healthcare. The difference between countries

877
01:13:53.000 --> 01:13:58.230
is in the amount of services they provide.
Maybe it's just a coincidence, but the countries

878
01:13:58.230 --> 01:14:02.990
with the most generous social programs are
also the world's happiest.

879
01:14:22.824 --> 01:14:27.970
There's this word that has come up a lot in
talking to people. Gezelligheid.

880
01:14:27.970 --> 01:14:32.311
Yeah. Gezelligheid.
Gezelligheid. Gezelligheid. Do you think that

881
01:14:32.311 --> 01:14:38.520
plays a roll in Dutch happiness?
Well I think maybe the fact that we have such

882
01:14:38.520 --> 01:14:43.820
a word does show that social values are considered
important.

883
01:14:44.240 --> 01:14:48.290
Bringing people together, sitting them around
the table with some kind of food and drink

884
01:14:48.290 --> 01:14:53.340
often and then they say oh yeah, this is gezellig.
This is really cozy I suppose is the closest

885
01:14:53.340 --> 01:14:56.324
you can say. Cozy and together.

886
01:14:56.324 --> 01:15:00.110
Dutch people like to confirm that it’s gezellig,

887
01:15:00.110 --> 01:15:07.020
when it’s gezellig. So we sit together and
we say ‘gezellig yeah?’ ‘Gezellig.’

888
01:15:07.020 --> 01:15:11.660
I think it’s just a nice social atmosphere,
we value that.

889
01:15:11.660 --> 01:15:16.810
It’s one of those words that it's difficult
to translate because it encompasses more of

890
01:15:16.810 --> 01:15:23.390
a feeling rather than actual definition. So
when you think of love and coziness and also

891
01:15:23.390 --> 01:15:29.470
the feelings of acceptance and belonging.
The idea is to actually foster human connections

892
01:15:29.470 --> 01:15:34.220
and I'm a firm believer that’s one of the
reasons why Dutch kids and also Dutch adults

893
01:15:34.220 --> 01:15:36.115
are among the happiest in the world.

894
01:15:48.324 --> 01:15:52.824
If you want to know what a good society is
look how happy the people are.

895
01:15:53.282 --> 01:15:56.140
The happiest
countries in the world are typically western

896
01:15:56.140 --> 01:16:04.520
countries. The first key is sheer survival
… safety, food. Once that is arranged it

897
01:16:04.520 --> 01:16:11.020
comes more to freedom. And why is freedom
important to happiness? Well in conditions

898
01:16:11.020 --> 01:16:16.230
of freedom people can choose a way of life
that fits them best.

899
01:16:16.657 --> 01:16:22.560
A big difference is how wealth spread within
the Netherlands, and we've seen some very

900
01:16:22.560 --> 01:16:28.000
interesting studies looking at the differences
in how wealth is distributed in a country

901
01:16:28.000 --> 01:16:33.210
and the level of happiness and there is a
very clear connection to it. So you see in

902
01:16:33.210 --> 01:16:38.990
countries where there is less difference between
rich and poor, people are generally much more happy.

903
01:16:39.615 --> 01:16:43.560
If you assess religiousness of a country, then

904
01:16:43.560 --> 01:16:48.657
you see a negative relationship. The more
believers, the less happy.

905
01:16:48.657 --> 01:16:53.074
The number of churches is going down. The
number of ministers is very much going down.

906
01:16:53.074 --> 01:16:58.050
The theology departments at universities have
absolutely hardly any students anymore, so

907
01:16:58.050 --> 01:17:00.824
it's really a secular country these days.

908
01:17:01.074 --> 01:17:04.615
Well, the Dutch may be the happiest people
in the world.

909
01:17:04.615 --> 01:17:07.160
I’m not totally sure whether
they are, but they complain a lot.

910
01:17:07.160 --> 01:17:11.782
Yeah that true. Especially in Amsterdam. We
really like to complain.

911
01:17:12.240 --> 01:17:15.532
They like to complain. I mean that’s the
Dutch national pastime.

912
01:17:15.532 --> 01:17:19.410
The majority of the Netherlands, of the Dutch
people, still think that the country is moving

913
01:17:19.410 --> 01:17:23.440
into in the wrong direction
The majority thinks it’s in the wrong direction.

914
01:17:23.440 --> 01:17:24.860
Yes.
What percent thinks that?

915
01:17:24.860 --> 01:17:26.532
It’s about 60% normally.

916
01:17:26.532 --> 01:17:29.949
The Dutch writer Simon Carmichael wrote in

917
01:17:29.960 --> 01:17:35.760
the 1950s already ‘The Dutch are a satisfied
people but express it in an unsatisfied way.’

918
01:17:36.032 --> 01:17:39.282
Do you think the Netherlands is getting more
free or less free?

919
01:17:41.240 --> 01:17:43.615
I would say less free.

920
01:17:43.615 --> 01:17:48.990
There’s less freedom. Less desire to explore liberties.

921
01:17:48.990 --> 01:17:54.240
Nowadays I think a lot of people don't dare
to express themselves.

922
01:17:54.240 --> 01:17:56.400
The fear of globalization is also present

923
01:17:56.400 --> 01:18:01.210
in this country of course. The feeling that
there are too many people from other countries.

924
01:18:01.324 --> 01:18:07.080
Dutch people are very vocal about things that
they think don’t work, so that leads to

925
01:18:07.080 --> 01:18:12.190
a lot of questioning of things and a lot of
improvement of things. So I think that's part

926
01:18:12.190 --> 01:18:17.790
of what helps things improve here is people
who say it's not good enough.

927
01:18:17.790 --> 01:18:21.080
At the same time you see that this a democracy
reform is coming up.

928
01:18:21.080 --> 01:18:23.740
There is also a thriving culture, an underground
culture.

929
01:18:23.740 --> 01:18:28.910
I also think there are a lot of people nowadays
that are coming forward

930
01:18:28.910 --> 01:18:36.610
20 years ago gay marriages were not yet there.
The law on euthanasia was not yet there.

931
01:18:36.610 --> 01:18:43.574
I recently got knighted. You know that which
is completely impossible 20 years ago.

932
01:18:43.710 --> 01:18:49.120
Maybe you have seen the line of happiness
in the Netherlands. It goes up and we live

933
01:18:49.120 --> 01:18:54.370
now longer and happier than ever in human
history. I think it would be wise if governments

934
01:18:54.370 --> 01:19:00.670
invest in happiness just like they invest
in health. And it will also be profitable

935
01:19:00.670 --> 01:19:07.350
for governments because happy people appear
to be better citizens. They participate more

936
01:19:07.350 --> 01:19:13.410
in the democratic process. Typically better
informed. They vote more. And especially interesting

937
01:19:13.410 --> 01:19:19.320
for governments, they better pay their taxes.
You mean they’re more honest, or they pay more?

938
01:19:19.320 --> 01:19:20.320
Both.

939
01:19:20.320 --> 01:19:23.480
Are you happy?
Yes I am.

940
01:19:23.480 --> 01:19:26.560
You look happy.
I feel so.

941
01:19:26.865 --> 01:19:32.620
Tim, are you hopeful about the future?
Yes. But it will be a bumpy road I think.

942
01:19:32.620 --> 01:19:38.440
I believe in humanity. I think that humans
are smart enough to realize that we have to

943
01:19:38.440 --> 01:19:40.490
take a different course.

944
01:19:40.615 --> 01:19:44.150
In these times of crisis, we need boldness

945
01:19:44.150 --> 01:19:50.070
and we need a view and we need ideas. I think
it's time to choose.

946
01:19:50.070 --> 01:19:57.020
My agenda is I want to change the world.
I was picking up on that.

947
01:19:57.020 --> 01:20:02.960
Economy me now is the relation between humanity
and money. The new system will be the relation

948
01:20:02.960 --> 01:20:05.824
between humanity and planet earth.

949
01:20:05.990 --> 01:20:08.949
So what do you think Johan? Are you hopeful
about the future?

950
01:20:08.949 --> 01:20:11.657
I wouldn't do this work everyday with Banktrack

951
01:20:11.657 --> 01:20:16.110
if I thought it's all hopeless. But it's all
pretty hopeless. I read this saying that I

952
01:20:16.110 --> 01:20:21.110
really took as my slogan. ‘We have no chance
at all, and we will grab it with both our hands.’

953
01:20:21.574 --> 01:20:24.850
Rather than fighting the darkness, I prefer

954
01:20:24.850 --> 01:20:33.080
lit up a candle. I believe our children together
will be able to get this to a better place.

955
01:20:33.407 --> 01:20:39.140
There is enough room in the Netherlands for
solar and wind power and to a certain extent

956
01:20:39.140 --> 01:20:44.550
geothermal heat to make all our energy in
a renewable way.

957
01:20:44.550 --> 01:20:51.490
Those companies that go for sustainability have
made more profit, have created higher employment,

958
01:20:51.490 --> 01:20:56.615
and are growing faster than the traditional
companies, the old economy.

959
01:20:56.699 --> 01:21:02.480
Ivette, are you hopeful about the future?
Yeah. I'm really hopeful. I'm hopeful because

960
01:21:02.480 --> 01:21:07.449
of the amount of people that are standing
up and are getting aware.

961
01:21:47.660 --> 01:21:52.820
This is a reward for living in Holland. As
a child you get to hear this story, and as

962
01:21:52.820 --> 01:21:57.290
an adult you get to turn around and repeat
it. As an added bonus, the government has

963
01:21:57.290 --> 01:22:04.740
thrown in legalized drugs and prostitution.
So what's not to love about being Dutch?

964
01:22:07.824 --> 01:22:13.800
There you have it - Dutch social democracy
in the 21st century. 20 years later I still

965
01:22:13.800 --> 01:22:18.560
see a lot of myself in this gezellig
little country. Only now we both have less

966
01:22:18.560 --> 01:22:21.949
sex, less drugs, and more bicycles.

967
01:22:23.609 --> 01:22:27.115
So is social democracy the nightmare we've
been warned about?

968
01:22:27.115 --> 01:22:32.020
It sure didn't seem that way
to me. But everyone has to decide for themselves

969
01:22:32.020 --> 01:22:37.960
how nightmarish it is to have month-long double
paid vacations and universal health care.

970
01:22:38.824 --> 01:22:44.110
Thank you all so much for joining me on this
journey and if you see me on the bike path

971
01:22:44.110 --> 01:22:45.782
make sure to say hi.

972
01:22:56.291 --> 01:22:59.074
And why are Dutch people so tall?

973
01:22:59.074 --> 01:23:01.574
You’re not going to ask me that question?
Why are Dutch people so tall?

974
01:23:01.574 --> 01:23:05.690
I have no idea. I think it must be the diet.
They’re the tallest race on earth.

975
01:23:05.690 --> 01:23:07.540
They are, and it’s freaky.
It’s freaky.

976
01:23:07.540 --> 01:23:11.020
And they’re much taller than 20 years ago.
Oh really?

977
01:23:11.020 --> 01:23:14.949
Yeah they are.
Or maybe your spine’s just compacted.