LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: You can print your own guns at home. Next it will be nuclear weapons. Really.

Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End is set in 2025. Here’s the description of the problem:

Every year, the civilized world grew and the reach of lawlessness and poverty shrank. Many people thought that the world was becoming a safer place . . . Nowadays Grand Terror technology was so cheap that cults and criminal gangs could acquire it. . . . In all innocence, the marvelous creativity of humankind continued to generate unintended consequences. There were a dozen research trends that could ultimately put world-killer weapons in the hands of anyone having a bad hair day.

2025 doesn’t seem all that far away anymore. Though the part about the civilized world growing and lawlessness and poverty shrinking doesn’t seem to be coming true. . . .