This paper proceeds from three assumptions. First, the genie is out of the bottle. Second, the genie is capable of good and ill in staggering and perhaps unheard of proportions. And finally, third, for humankind to survive the genie some sort of governance is both necessary and possible. The genie includes a wide range of emerging technologies including nanotechnology, biotechnology, human enhancement, non-lethal weapons, information technology, and robotics. It is argued that that these technologies are being innovated, adapted and used at an unprecedented rate in a culture of technological uncertainty which provides very little time and minimal governance in order to ask the question not can we do this but should we do this?