My old 1975-era RV fridge had no moving parts at all, no pump, no fan. Just a propane driven pilot light which switched off & on as it heated the ammonia in a sealed system. The ammonia circulated passively. The fridge had to be kept in a more or less vertical orientation for the circulation to work properly. Too much off level, it wouldn't work. When the RV was rolling down the road, the orientation of the fridge was less important, the constant shifting back & forth of the fridge would allow the refrigerant to circulate quite well. Its main point of breakdown was the pilot light / thermocouple mechanism, kept either getting dirty or corroded, otherwise it was extremely reliable. The propane supply could be switched off and the fridge could run on "shore power" - 110VAC when the RV was plugged in. The 110VAC was simply used as a heat source, again, no pumps, no fan, electricity was solely used as a heat source.

I took 2 semesters of 1st year college Mandarin last year. Got a virtual B+, but I was just auditing the course. Putting the same effort I expended on learning Mandarin into learning Spanish, I would have been much further along as a Spanish speaker. However, I really enjoy what little I know about Mandarin & that will continue the rest of my life. I now have a window into the cultures of the Middle Kingdom I could have not otherwise gotten.

Are you STILL alive? If so, then so much for your 'plans'. You GOT older, like it or not.

What would keep friends & family of the deceased from doing the same, using their own skills & equipment? A broadband internet connection at the site of the funeral, decent lighting. decent miking, & a few 110VAC outlets would be enough, IIRC.

I agree about the purpose of funerals. I wrote my mother's obituary, stored her ashes at my home for a couple of days, transported them 500 miles to her town of origin, gave her eulogy at her funeral and actually buried her ashes in the same plot with 2 of her sisters, with my own two hands. A great many people reading this thread will just not "get it", and will never "get it" even after they die. Denial is not only a river in Egypt.

I think I lead a valuable life. I don't care what you think about THAT.

Cremation already gives families that option. Crematoriums often have options for viewing the body prior to cremation, probably for an extra charge. The cremated remains can be transported without special permits & methods of storage are up to the custodian of the ashes.

Don't be so morbid. That is just lunch getting delivered to the staff there.

Among some cultures, if you don't go to people's funerals, they will (1) come back to haunt you or (2) their aggrieved relatives will put a curse on you. Still true in some parts of the good old USA.

" I'm not having any funeral, so don't care a lot about what the embalmers want to do." Dead people don't make funerals, living people do. Presence of a dead body is optional.

That actually happened to me. I am not an electrician, but I know something about household AC power. One morning some of the power in my house was out, some wasn't. I checked the feed lines going to the main dual breakers - only one line was "hot", the other was dead. I called my city-owned power company, and like the ignoramuses they were, they told me to call an electrician, on my $. I insisted they come out and check their own wiring up to the point where it became MY wiring, since there was very, very little on my end that could have caused such a problem. So they did. Sure enough, one of the 3 crimps connecting the city's wiring to my house had failed & opened one leg of my 220V feed. Their excuse was that the last time the house had its wiring worked on (decades before the problem developed) they had used temporary crimps which were supposed to have been replaced with permanent ones - but never were. so the city replaced all 3 crimps (a few decades late) and immediately restored my power - at no cost to me. Had I followed their suggestion, I would have wasted my money on an electrician, who would have wound up having the same discussion with the city that I did.

Everyone reading this is 100% likely to be dead in 140 years.

"send humanity down a the long dark path of extermination" We are doing this very well on our own initiative and need no help from other planets or dimensions, thenk yew veddy much.

'The result of the connection being disrupted can generate some amazing sparks' Maybe that's why the perps used rifles & shot out the wiring from a safe distance. D'oh!

"As it turns out, one guy in a pickup truck can cripple a city's ability to function. You don't think that any enemies could muster those kind of resources? Nobody is even trying." You have no idea is anyone is really trying. None of us do. 30 guys with 30 pickup trucks, 30 hunting rifles shooting armor-piercing bullets (available almost anywhere in the USA), could easily take out transformers over a wide area, and cripple a region's ability to function.