Why Wasn't Our 2015 Like 'Back to the Future II'?

The worst part was the Cubs not making it to the World Series! Thankfully, they won the 2016 World Series.

https://www.quora.com/In-the-1950s-they-thought-the-year-2000-would-be-the-future-with-hover-cars-colonies-on-Mars-and-such-why-are-we-not-this-yet/answer/Jon-Mixon-1

Multiple reasons, including:

The Cold War - Trillions of dollars that could have been used to improve the lives of the people of the world, as well as to advance science and technology, was squandered on what was clearly useless posturing.

Bad political choices - People refused to elect leaders with vision, and thus had to satisfy themselves with the grubby future that was the result.

Bad economic choices - Making money quickly was emphasized over earning consistent, longterm profits. Inventions and space travel are longterm capital investments, and people weren't looking for that.

Poor educational decisions - Instead of emphasizing math, sciences and engineering for decades, millions of people went to colleges and studied things which could never provide them with employment, much less benefit their larger societies. Somebody needed to be able to create and repair things, but few people were being trained to do that.

Apathy - People grew more interested in new gadgets and toys, than they were in improving their societies or caring for our planet. They just stop caring and things slowed down or just stopped happening.