People may be less ignorant, more literate, and more open-minded than previously in history, but how can we judge the smarts of people a hundred years ago let alone a thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand years ago?

Who's to say that all the geniuses of the world did or did not live in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia? Smart is culturally relative and highly subjective.

Of course, many studies and anecdotal evidence points to the conclusion that technology inhibits certain abilities such as memory. We no longer rely on rote memory let alone epic memorization like Beowulf or the Odyssey.

Despite the loss in certain skills, the average person in this era has access to more information than kings and priests in the past. If this is how you measure smarts, then smart we are.