
Nootropics – The Facts About “Smart Drugs” - cbarnsdale
http://www.unfinishedman.com/nootropics-facts-about-smart-drugs/
======
jonnathanson
A word of caution about vasodilators: I've seen them touted more and more
frequently by nootropics enthusiasts, as though they're completely harmless.
This is not necessarily true.

Blood pressure is a very meticulously regulated process in the body, with
countless chemicals, hormones, and other endogenous signals in the mix. It's
entirely possible, if uncommon, to overdose when self-administering
vasodilating drugs. A lot of vasodilators work by ionically tweaking the fluid
retention of the kidneys, which, if thrown out of whack, can lead to all sorts
of not-so-fun problems.

In general, be careful when messing with your blood vessels, or with any drugs
that change the ionic balance of your bloodstream.

The other thing I'd say is TANSTAAFL. Generally speaking, when you're
upregulating one process or chemical in the body, you're downregulating
another process or chemical. If you're not sure what's being ramped up, and
what's being ramped down -- or, even scarier, if _science_ doesn't quite know
yet -- then proceed with a tiny bit of caution.

I don't mean to dump cold water on the idea of nootropics. Some of them seem
pretty harmless. Some of them may indeed have a net benefit. Others...perhaps,
but the jury's still out. In the meantime, I guess I am hesitant to treat my
body like a lab experiment. Especially when there are so many proven, healthy,
effective ways to enhance cognition. Such as exercise and study.

~~~
possibilistic
As someone hoping to enter a systems metabolomics program next year, let me
simplify your statement:

 _If you do this, you're messing with high-order, nonlinear dynamics._

Does anyone really trust themselves to dose that properly? They had better be
a trained medicinal chemist with great skill at solving PDEs. I also doubt the
average enthusiast is set up to run HPLC to measure and model various critical
metabolite concentrations and their change over time.

------
aelaguiz
The article is really interesting, but I can't help but be suspicious of the
data (opinion) contained within.

The expert used in the article is John Holcomb, who owns a supplement
e-commerce site. I can't find anything on his site that talks about his
qualifications or any hard facts to back up most of this.

I'm really interested in nootropics and increasing mental efficacy - but there
is no shortage of snake-oil vendors out there, some of whom are undoubtedly
taking advantage of the boom in interest for these drugs. This makes me very
leery about accepting this information.

Particularly the section on Racetams and how there are so many of them that
can be tried safely in combination or by themselves.

With this awesome line:

"The one caveat with racetams: from a wealth of anecdotes about a third of the
population is non-responsive or only mildly responsive to one or more types,
and about a third are high responders that can experience spectacular results.
"

Which sounds awesome to me, if I make money by selling these supplements.
Basically - you may not experience any effects until you hit the right
combination so keep buying them and trying them until you do and eventually
you too could be a genius. Is it like some sort of intelligence enhancing slot
machine?

I wish I could believe this stuff was effective. Someone please tell me I'm
crazy and that he's right and for $20/bottle I can be slightly less dumb?

~~~
systemtrigger
I question his motives because he recommends Piracetam daily dosage of 3 to 5
grams and said it may take up to 6 weeks to realize the effects.

I bought Piracetam on Amazon after someone here on HN recommended it, and for
the past 2 months have been taking 800 mg per day. I often skip a few days and
have not noticed any addiction symptoms.

I doubled my dosage one day, so took 1600 mg that day, and felt sick to my
stomach. When I repeated the 1600 mg experiment again 2 weeks later, I threw
up. I am 190 lbs 6 ft, YMMV but I can't imagine taking 3 to 5 grams.

Within a few minutes of swallowing a pill (800 mg) I feel more alert and
without the jitteriness that caffeine brings. It seems to improve my general
focus, writing, including programming, reading and speaking abilities. As with
all self reporting you should absorb mine with salt.

~~~
im3w1l
Since you are self experimenting, may I recommend a blind, crossover test,
with wash-out?

------
plantain
There may be places out there to find reliable information on the efficacy and
safety of prescription medication taken off-label, but a guest post from a
seller of them certainly is _not_ one.

~~~
Alex3917
Actually the good news is that it should actually be easier to find research
on these drugs than your standard drugs because they're not being tested by
big pharma, which means there should be much less of a file drawer effect.

That said, you'd have to be kind of dumb to think that you can improve your
brain function by taking the same cocktail of drugs every day. Taking low
doses of different stuff on an intermittent basis, maybe, but hammering the
same receptors day in and day out and expecting some sort of longterm benefit
is extremely naive.

~~~
forensic
why does it work with caffeine?

~~~
Alex3917
There are a number of different possible answers to that question. One answer
is that it doesn't, it just feels like it does. And if you look at studies of
people who are caffeine dependent, they're not actually are more alert after
drinking a cup of coffee than people who aren't caffeine dependent and don't
drink coffee.

The other answer is that if you're using caffeine from plants then you're
getting a different dose each day, and if you're not taking a lot and you're
not doing it every day then tolerance will be less of an issue. Also, caffeine
breaks down into multiple separate drugs when digested so that may also have
some impact on tolerance.

------
stephengillie
_Unlike in athletics, academics isn’t necessarily a zero sum game. While in a
race there is necessarily a winner and a loser, nobody in academics is held
back if another student is better able to retain their information._

No, but the doped student's advantage could cause her to be selected over
another (undoped) student in college entrance exams, program entrance exams,
and other educational competitions.

Does this mean we'll soon see articles about how the Ivy League and most
hacker dens dope more than the Tour de France?

~~~
huhtenberg
So what? Sports are essentially about _competing_ , so the playing field being
leveled is important. Academics is about the advancement of science. If doping
helps a student to find a cure for cancer, I see no reason to object.

~~~
krisoft
Unless it's side-effect free, it could pose an ethical dilemma. Would you take
a pill wich makes you a prodigy but shortens your expected lifetime with 5
year? What would you think about the same decision if the former prodigy level
becomes the new average in your field because of the widespread use?

~~~
Permit
>Would you take a pill wich makes you a prodigy but shortens your expected
lifetime with 5 year?

Absolutely. Perhaps it's the naivety of youth speaking, but I'd gladly trade 5
of the worst years of my life to improve the rest of them.

> What would you think about the same decision if the former prodigy level
> becomes the new average in your field because of the widespread use?

I'd argue the world would be a much better place if this was the case. The
real question you might want to ask is what if these drugs become expensive
and only the upper class can afford them. It might lead to a sort of catch 22
by which no one was interested in hiring less intelligent or less capable
people who couldn't afford such drugs.

~~~
philh
> The real question you might want to ask is what if these drugs become
> expensive and only the upper class can afford them. It might lead to a sort
> of catch 22 by which no one was interested in hiring less intelligent or
> less capable people who couldn't afford such drugs.

Unless government regulations get in the way, I would expect employers to
start paying for their employees' drugs.

If they don't produce enough of an effect for that to be worthwhile, I
wouldn't expect them to see widespread use. (If they cost $X,000/year but only
increase your earning potential by $Y,000/year, with Y<X, how many people are
really going to take them? Not zero, but I'd guess not enough to have much
impact on the market. And if Y>X, it's a good deal for employers, who might
also be able to use economies of scale to get the drugs at a discount.)

~~~
simonsarris
> Unless government regulations get in the way, I would expect employers to
> start paying for their employees' drugs.

Well, every place I've worked at has offered free coffee, which is a well-
studied (albeit minor?) nootropic.

------
paborden
Please, please, please ... Be careful with Nootropics.

I'm a bit of a consciousness-naut and self-experimenter who's obsessed about
increasing productivity. I've experimented a lot with Nootropics.

My thoughts?

Modafinil. Stay away from it. The stuff is wickedly addictive and many people
have experienced significant long-term side effects, especially if they try to
go off it.

Piracetam. Does a lot to reduce ADD and has strong anti-anxiety properties.
That said, I found the benefits (minimally increased focus and less anxiety)
to be far outweighed by the fact that you have to keep taking the stuff
obsessively lest you go into withdrawal (coming off the stuff is horrible once
you've been on it for a couple weeks).

If you want to increase productivity and focus there are a ton of other things
you can do, starting with the basics of exercise, proper nutrition, and
meditation.

~~~
mistercow
>Modafinil. Stay away from it. The stuff is wickedly addictive and many people
have experienced significant long-term side effects, especially if they try to
go off it.

I have known quite a number of people who have taken modafinil, and none of
them experienced more than minor side effects. I have several friends who
stopped using it for long periods because they built a tolerance (tolerance !=
addiction), but none experienced withdrawal symptoms.

I used adrafinil for a while because it has the advantage of being unscheduled
in the US, and I noticed weak tolerance building, but the only side effects I
had were insomnia (while it was in effect) and mild headaches which went away
with aspirin. The only reason I stopped taking it was that they revoked its
approval in France, and none of the generics from other countries that I've
found seem to work.

~~~
jes5199
I've tried adrafinil, too, and it has a side effect for me that makes me
almost completely dysfunctional: I get really, really cranky and angry. The
first time I tried it I couldn't resist trading insults with my _boss_ \- at
this point, I don't dare take it if I'm going to be around other human beings
at all.

------
tokenadult
The article begins with "It’s a lengthy read, but don’t let the wall of text
dissuade you." That's scary right there. Anyone who is scared off by this
short, popular fluff piece needs a lot of help in reading (or is not a native
speaker of English). To learn to read a piece like this thoughtfully and
critically mostly takes practice in reading, not the latest "smart drug." I've
been hearing people tout smart drugs for as long as I have been involved in
online discussions (since 1992), and I have never seen any evidence of regular
users of smart drugs doing anything smart.

Let's learn from how an indisputably smart person (LISP hacker and genuine
NASA rocket scientist Peter Norvig, now Google's director of research)
approaches claims of a new wonder drug. He writes of "Warning Signs in
Experimental Design and Interpretation"

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

in a free online article that is also a wall of text, but which any Hacker
News reader could read and apply to become more smart in day-by-day life. We
can learn together by comparing the popular article kindly submitted here to
the checklist of warning signs provided by Peter Norvig.

Warning Sign D1: Lack of a Randomized Controlled Trial

The article about "smart drugs" submitted here doesn't cite any scientific
literature from any country and makes no reference to results from randomized,
controlled trials. As another participant here has already pointed out in a
smart comment,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4516111>

the author of the article's main text is in the business of selling smart
drugs. He is not a neutral, objective source of information on the subject. He
doesn't seem willing to share his evidence base for his claims, perhaps
because he has none.

Warning Sign D2: Lack of Double-Blind Studies

The author refers to people taking various drugs while being aware of what
they are taking, which skews their recollection of their performance and very
likely results in invalid recollections. Most SCIENTIFIC studies of mental
performance interventions are careful to be "double blind" and to have neither
the subject nor the experimenter aware of which subject received the studied
intervention and which received a sham intervention. And such studies have
careful tests of mental performance (working memory, IQ, or the like). The
article here is mere advertising puffery by comparison.

Warning Sign D3: Too Few Subjects

The author advertising smart drugs doesn't describe any careful studies, so of
course he doesn't mention the number of subjects in any studies. Most so-
called studies of smart drugs have been far too small to have any statistical
power.

Warning Sign D4: The Wrong Subjects

People voluntarily self-administering smart drugs are VERY likely not a
representative sample of the general population. If some people self-report
that they became smarter after using the drugs (do their friends and relatives
agree?), that by no means shows that most people will be better off if they
take the drugs. Random assignment to the treatment condition from among a
representative sample is necessary to show that the drugs have any general or
consistent benefit.

Warning Sign D5: The Wrong Questions

Most of the supposed tests of smart drugs appear to use mere user self-reports
rather than standardized measures of mental performance that show up in the
scientific literature on psychology. Simply put, no high-quality treatise on
human intelligence

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellige...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/IntelligenceCitations)

has ever reported that smart drugs are good for anything.

Warning Sign D6: The Wrong Statistics

Again, most statements about smart drugs found online have no statistics at
all. In any event, what studies there have been about smart drugs that use the
language of statistical analysis have mostly been very amateurish in their
statistical approach.

Warning Sign D7: Lack of a Specific Hypothesis, or Overzealous Data Mining

Before the user begins taking a smart drug, is the expected effect
"creativity," or "memory" or cognition, or what? The article, by its
incoherence in grouping drugs by their supposed effects, shows that most of
the time people who have sunk money into smart drugs are expected to imagine
their own benefits, and will, to avoid embarrassment at being snookered.

Warning Sign D8: Lack of a Theory

The human brain is a very complicated biological system, with many feedback
loops, and so far there is no mainstream theory of neurophysiology (a topic
with MANY investigators all over the world) that suggests simple chemical
interventions to produce long-term improvement in any aspect of mental
performance.

Warning Sign D9: Lack of controls

It's not clear in the smart drug promotional literature even what should be
controlled if there were a controlled trial of smart drugs. The smart drug
promoters are not making enough effort to contrast taking smart drugs with
other interventions (say, learning to read more challenging reading material
by practice) that likely have better impact on long-term mental performance.

Warning Sign I1: Lacking Repeatability and Reproducibility

The author basically acknowledges that many smart drugs have results that are
not reproducible reliably.

Warning Sign I2: Ignoring Publication Bias

Because smart drug trials are not announced in advance in publicly readable
databases, every person selling smart drugs gets to announce unverifiable
anecdotes while hiding in the file drawer all the cases in which smart drugs
failed.

Warning Sign I3: Ignoring Other Sources of Bias

The smart drug promoters make no effort to subject smart drug claims to the
statistical tests that in recent years have revealed many incorrect claims in
published scientific literature on other subjects. Because the smart drug
claim is an extraordinary claim, smart drug promoters should produce
extraordinary evidence to back up the claim.

I'll skip Norvig's next warning sign, as the following one

Warning Sign I5: Taking p too Seriously

is more relevant for the claims here. There is NO indication that smart drugs
have any real-world significance (in other words, that people actually live
smarter lives after taking them) as contrasted with claimed (but unreported
here) instances of the drugs having "statistically significant" effects.

The last few checklist items on Norvig's checklist

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

are also worth looking at in connection with claims about smart drugs.

To sum up, I am willing to do a mental test (memory, or IQ, as the smart drug
promoter chooses) duel with anyone who claims that smart drugs have helped him
become smarter. I don't believe it, because I don't think there is sufficient
evidence to back up that extraordinary claim. If anyone wants to set up the
duel, we should each choose "seconds" to negotiate the terms of the mental
test duel. I would, of course, insist on a series of STANDARDIZED mental tests
administered by a psychologist with a lot of clinical experience. I don't
expect any user of smart drugs to win such a duel.

AFTER EDIT: Responding to the first two replies received, there are standard
methods in statistics for estimating adequate sample sizes based on expected
effect size of the intervention. There isn't any one best sample size that
fits all experimental studies, but a careful experimenter will calculate what
sample size is large enough to maximize likelihood of meaningful results
(statistical power) while minimizing the expense of gathering lots of subjects
for the experiment. My proposal for a duel is, of course, a sample size of 1
plus the number of smart drug users who come forth to take the duel, and has
other problems as a data-gathering measure, but I offer the duel to illustrate
that I think that anyone can improve in smarts, for any real-world purpose, in
a lot of ways that are better than taking poorly understood drugs pushed by
smart drug hucksters.

~~~
Permit
>Warning Sign D3: Too Few Subjects >The author advertising smart drugs doesn't
describe any careful studies, so of course he doesn't mention the number of
subjects in any studies. Most so-called studies of smart drugs have been far
too small to have any statistical power.

Neither yourself, nor Peter Norvig suggested an appropriate number of subjects
for tests like these. So I'm curious, what would be an appropriate number of
subjects?

~~~
lars
You test some statistical hypothesis, and you end with some probability that
the hypethesis is true. Increasing the number of people increases the number
of samples. Loosely speaking, increasing the number of samples will reduce the
variance on the variable you are measuring. When the variance is reduced, the
confidence in the result is increased.

Say you are measuring IQ before and after taking omega 3. Say your hypthesis
is "omega 3 immedieately increases IQ". Assume this is true, even if it
probably isn't. After testing this on 20 people you might be able to say "the
hypthesis appears to be true, but there is a 46% percent chance these results
are due to chance". However after testing 1000 people, you might be able to
say "the hypthesis appears to be true, and there is a 0.5% percent chance
these results are due to chance". Then you are 99.5% confident in your result.
Standards for confidence varies from field to field, but typically 99%
confidence or more is called a significant result. Given some assumptions, you
can also calculate the number of samples needed to generate a result with
confidence >X% with probability Y. According to Daniel Kahneman in Thinking
Fast and Slow, most researchers don't take the time to do this, and are
consistently surprised when their experiments turn out to not give significant
results.

~~~
Evbn
This post, like so many others, states the p-value concept backwards.
Statistics give you the chance of a false positive observation among a
universe of negative realities, not the chance of a false reality in a
universe of positive observations.

------
Tooluka
> No one talks about this stuff!

Yeah, right. Probably in some other internet. You can't find a site today
where there they weren't discussed at least once.

Personally I won't take them without prescription from a doctor. Yes,
downsides are pretty obscure and rare but the same are benefits. Based on
reviews they are not some magic pills like in Limitless. Closer to placebo
actually.

~~~
matznerd
They are not some magic drug like Limitless, but they are closer to that than
to placebos. Do you not notice a difference in your mental and physical state
when you take caffeine? Caffeine is a Nootropic and it works, but Caffeine is
just the tip of the iceberg.

~~~
Tooluka
For me caffeine is also closer to a placebo (I do know that it works, just
weakly and randomly for different people). The major positive effect of it I
think is drinking 100-200ml of hot drink. I feel the same after drinking
coffee or any tea or some cacao mix by nestle. Drinking water a lot is very
helpful for human brain, especially in cold and arid offices where we mostly
sit without moving.

------
Symmetry
I think that the /r/nootropics FAQ has a lot of good related information,
including links to scientific papers.

<http://www.reddit.com/help/faqs/nootropics>

~~~
powermeat
And affiliate links where you can buy.

~~~
drivebyacct2
I see no such thing.

------
ryeguy
Some helpful links: <http://examine.com> is an excellent, unbiased, citation-
oriented database of supplements and nutrition information. Reddit also has a
nootropics subreddit: <http://reddit.com/r/nootropics>.

------
desireco42
I started experimenting with nootropics maybe year ago. There are some
interesting effects. I still have to get something that would impress me.
Claims that modafinil creates addiction, not true, it seems that same guy is
going on forums and spreading those rumors. Anyhow, just wanted to say I am
for it, but be reasonable.

However, you should also know, that it is much easier to get a lot of effects
just by using things that are easily accesible to us:

* exercise or even walk (like 45 mins)

* coffee (obviously, unfortunately doesn't work for me)

* tea, green tea, yerba mate, others (amazing and powerful effects)

* music - trance or classical work really well

* binaural beats - also work exceptionally well, for focus and for creativity, idea generation

* meditation (goes with the one above)

So what I am trying to say, there are a lot of ways how we can boost our
intellects. Let's not forget really enjoyable ones like green tea for example.

~~~
te0x
Well, I see no reason not to use all of the above in conjunction with
nootropics.

~~~
desireco42
I agree.

------
kilian
As someone whose diet is already high in eggs, meat etc. (paleo) I wonder how
much effect this has. I am asking this because both fish oil supplements and
magnesium supplements don't seem to have any additional beneficial effect on
me. Anyone have experience with that?

~~~
billswift
As the post admitted, few supplements have benefit once you are eating a well-
balanced diet. As he put it, "these are best used to fill any deficiencies."
Though it is sad to see what amounts to an infomercial voted up to the number
2 spot on HN.

Added: Now it's made the top post.

------
narrator
I think the whole idea of nootropics goes against what I call the "American
ideology".

The "American Ideology" being that anyone can do anything they just have to
try. If you can cognitively enhance yourself and become more successful then
that proves that there's some things some people can't do because they are
just not smart enough and that realization is enough to activate full blown
cognitive dissonance. People think, "this must be cheating!", "this must be
dangerous!", "this must be addictive!", "why isn't everybody else doing it?".

------
crntaylor
Potentially relevant - Johann Hari's article in HuffPost about his experiment
with Provigil (aka Modafinil).

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/my-experiment-
with...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/my-experiment-with-
smart_b_156954.html)

~~~
logn
Some poker players have been talking about this one too to boost their
performance.

[http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/20/science/sci-
braindop...](http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/20/science/sci-
braindoping20)

<http://groanblog.livejournal.com/865.html>

I've read elsewhere that it can be addictive.

Also, the LA Time article discusses Inderal, a beta-blocker which could be
considered a smart drug since it eases nerves by reducing adrenaline rushes
(no more shaky hands or pounding heart). Might be helpful to the hacker
community if you're stricken by nerves working on a tight deadline.

~~~
elemeno
Everything I've read about Modafinil suggests that it's not addictive - for
everything being Wikipedia along with some other sites which I don't recall
off the top of my head (it was about six months ago when I did any research
about it).

It's a lovely little thing though, very nice clean focused sensation coupled
with a lack of tiredness.

~~~
acuozzo
> Everything I've read about Modafinil suggests that it's not addictive - for
> everything being Wikipedia along with some other sites which I don't recall
> off the top of my head (it was about six months ago when I did any research
> about it).

It's probably not addictive, but what if you become addicted to the lifestyle
it makes possible?

~~~
dedward
Well, there's a difference between things you don't want to give up, and
things you can't give up because you'll get sick as a dog, and/or require
hospitalization and maybe die.

~~~
acuozzo
I understand what you're saying, but do know that psychological addiction
isn't something one can ``just give up''.

------
peteretep
[citation needed]

------
notJim
Very heartening to see the skeptical reaction this article is receiving here.

------
Rickasaurus
I've been taking piracetam with choline twice daily for about 5 years now.
It's not very profound, just lets you think a little harder for a little
longer. In R&D that can mean a lot though.

The downside is it interacts with stimulants. Too much coffee and you'll be
running to the bathroom. Just something to keep in mind.

------
gaunab
Here's a thread on Bluelight on Nootropics, usage, dose and reports on their
effects that I found quite informative:
[http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/206147-Aniracetam-holy-
cr...](http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/206147-Aniracetam-holy-crap-does-it-
work)!

------
ScottAS
It's too bad that this reads like spam. Anyone care to share links to
legitimate research?

~~~
ggwicz
There are a lot of shitty survey-type studies, but there is some good
mechanistic research you can turn up just by searching the specific chemical
names on Pubmed (<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed>)

------
kgosser
At first, I thought this was relating to Lower Dens
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyxzjF8IjE8>)

------
crisnoble
I only have one question, can I get some links to buy these?

~~~
crisnoble
Reddit pulled through on this one:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/search?q=buy&restrict...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/search?q=buy&restrict_sr=on)

------
sillysaurus
_[Taking stimulants] can, over time, permanently impair your mental
faculties._

Does anyone have citations for that claim? (Any non-anecdotal evidence.)

~~~
maxerickson
It isn't an obscure claim:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis>

~~~
sillysaurus
Hey, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.

Stimulant psychosis is unrelated to long-term permanent cognitive impairment;
it's temporary, for example.

I was hoping to find out more about the medical basis for the "permanent
gradual decline of mental abilities" assertion, because it seems hard to
believe that our current knowledge of the human brain is sufficient to make
such a broad claim with any degree of accuracy.

~~~
maxerickson
Well, the page does say "However it has been suggested that about 5–15% of
users fail to make a complete recovery from the psychosis in the long term."

And there are other statements suggesting that people that have suffered from
acute psychosis are prone to relapses (if a chronic user has more problems
than a dabbler, that at least suggests accumulated damage).

------
31reasons
The best smart "drug" you can take is Omega-3. 90% of the population is
deficient in it. Its also the #1 supplement to control ADHD.

------
ImJasonH
I can't believe we're calling them "smart drugs" if they don't even take the
opportunity to overuse the ümlaut...

------
gubatron
"it's a mobile OS powered by JavaScript!"

fail. I hope you can code in something else than javascript. We have to DEAL
with Javascript on the browser because browser vendors haven't bothered
supporting other more superior languages, wouldn't it be nice to have
type="text/python", type="text/ruby" as options, have threads, native
datatypes, real OO, logical variable scoping, better numeric precision and all
the things that javascript was not meant for?

I hope more big time CEOs come out and say that not everything is meant to be
written with HTML5. It's like we're raising a generation of moronic
programmers with all this HTML5 hype.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
Is this generation any different than the generation of moronic programmers
raised on Java?

