The new Pandora's boxes of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are almost open, yet we seem hardly to have noticed.Ideas can't be put back in a box; unlike uranium or plutonium,they don't need to be mined and refined, and they can be freely copied. Once they are out, they are out. In this age of triumphant commercialism,technology - with science as its handmaiden - is delivering a series of almost magical inventions that are the most phenomenally lucrative ever seen. We are aggressively pursuing the promises of these new technologies within the now-unchallenged system of global capitalism and its manifold financial incentives and competitive pressures. It's unfortunate that the Pugwash meetings started only well after the nuclear genie was out of the bottle - roughly 15 years too late. We are also getting a belated start on seriously addressing the issues around 21st-century technologies - the prevention of knowledge-enabled mass destruction - and further delay seems unacceptable.