If Thomas Edison were to walk into the typical kitchen or living room of a middle-income home today, he would see an extraordinary assemblage of mechanical and electrical wonders. Even the famous inventor would surely marvel at the impact made on people's day-to-day lives by the tremendous advances in technology since 1880 when the incandescent light bulb first became available commercially.
If Mr. Edison were to visit a modern computerized manufacturing plant, he would probably find even more remarkable the wide range of complex functions now performed with such efficiency, speed, and apparent ease. And if he were to tour a newly constructed medical facility, the array of sophisticated machinery and services available today might seem staggering, so primitive by comparison would be the hospitals of the latter part of the nineteenth century.
It's obvious that new technology pervades the lives of millions of people and in many ways has added immeasurably to the material progress of civilization. And yet along with the advances brought by technological achievements have also come serious challenges to some fundamental moral concerns and spiritual values that many people feel are essential to the real "quality of life" and to true progress.
