A Very Clean Death

A techno death has one thing going for it—it is relatively clean. At least compared to dying in the Victorian age or earlier. Death back then was often downright messy. Today, unless you are hit by a bus (which is unlikely), you will probably die in a hospital on nice clean white sheets with a morphine drip and a team of people working to either keep you alive a little longer or help you die as comfortably as possible. At least that’s how it looks in the movies.

I’m sure reality is different, but isn’t it always?

Of course, you could also die peacefully in bed at home from a nocturnal heart attack or stroke (what most old folks secretly wish for). Or, at the other extreme, in a violent accident or from the ravages of a painful cancer. But even then, it would still be relatively clean. No fleas or other vermin waiting to consume your rotting body. No weird parasites eating away at you while you’re still alive. No black plague, no smallpox, no cholera sweeping through entire communities. Sure, there are still exceptions today—flesh-eating bacteria and the like—but they are far less common than they used to be.