I think that as a society (meaning the whole world) people are much smarter now than any time in history. The proliferation of the Internet has brought all of the information in the world (including a lot of false information) to the fingertips of all of the developed world. No longer do people have to go to the library to find the information they want, they just Google it and instantly they have all of the information they could want. The Internet has really leveled the playing field as information is no longer confined to the elite few.

However, I do think that this comes at a price. People are so used to instant gratification that many no longer really think for themselves. If they have a problem, they Google it to try to find a quick answer. Also, since we're subjected to information overload, many people no longer take the time to really think through problems, they want a quick fix.

Overall, I think that the collective intelligence of the world is much higher than it's ever been, and I hope that CreateDebate can harness this intelligence to spread the knowledge of our users to more and more people throughout the world.