Can dangerous knowledge — such as the publication of the full genome of the 1918 influenza virus on the Internet — ever be contained? Once opened, might Pandora’s Box be shut again? Those questions lie at the heart of an ongoing debate over the necessity and application of precaution in the deployment of new technologies.

“Reversibility” is a concept that Jamais Cascio proposes as a wiser alternative to the Precautionary Principle or the lesser-known Proactionary Principle:

“A cornerstone of the open future concept is that we should be striving towards a world that maximizes our flexibility in response to challenges. We will never have perfectly free choices when problems arise, but we are more likely to come up with good solutions under less-constrained conditions than we would if we were limited to a handful of options. The choice to pull back and say ‘let’s try something different’ is an option that we should strive to maintain.”