F*ck Around and Find Out: The Ancient Algorithm We Can't Escape

Here’s a typical scenario:

You've been warned about something by parents, friends, and experts, and you've ignored it. Meh. Who cares. But then the consequences hit so bad that you’re left naked in a fetal position, wondering what the hell went wrong.

This pattern is so universal that we've given it a name: "fuck around and find out."

Just the other day, I watched my five-year-old deliberately slide his fingers into the closing door despite my repeated warnings. Ok, it was one warning, but it was stern. Yes, it happened just like you’re thinking it did—tears flowed as the door pinched his small fingers. As I applied the cold pack, I thought he’s never going to make this mistake again. Welcome, first conscious FAFO moment.

A week later, he did it again, not the door, but with a cup of hot tea I'd warned him was too hot to hold.

What struck me wasn't just that he ignored my warnings, but how familiar his learning pattern was to my own adult mistakes. I should know, I left my stable corporate job to start a photography studio despite everyone warning me about the brutal economics of creative businesses. Please don’t remind me.

My studio collapsed within a year, wiping out my already non-existent savings in the process. The market was as saturated as everyone had warned, and the profit margins were exactly as thin. What profits! I didn't discover anything new—I just had to experience the pain firsthand to understand it.

This crude little phrase, overused in internet culture, isn't just a modern meme. It's the compressed essence of perhaps the oldest algorithm in human learning, a pattern so fundamental that it appears in tradition throughout history.

What interests me isn't just that this pattern exists, but why we keep rediscovering it in new language, why we can't seem to escape it, and most crucially why warnings alone almost never prevent us from fucking around anyway.

The Neuroscience of Finding Out

Our brains process warnings and experienced consequences through entirely different neural pathways:

• Warnings activate the prefrontal cortex: our analytical, rational brain

• Consequences trigger the limbic system: our emotional, memory-forming centers

Neuroimaging studies show that consequences create different brain activation patterns than warnings about those same consequences. When my child touched that hot cup despite my warnings, his brain didn't just register "hot"—it created powerful emotional associations that my verbal warnings alone couldn't generate.

Your brain isn't designed to learn deepest truths from warnings. It's built to learn them through experience.Our brains evolved to prioritize experiential learning precisely because abstract warnings often lack sufficient situational context to be effective.

Throughout human history, many warnings were biased, context-dependent, or used for social control. Our brains evolved to privilege direct experience over secondhand information.

A couple of years ago, I was in a Zoom meeting with a consultant (ahem, McKin…) about user journeys and behaviour. He presented elaborate slides about "learning frameworks" and "decision matrices." The irony wasn't lost on me—he was just saying "fuck around and find out" in a $2,000 suit (not sure, since it was online, if he had his bottom part on)

The Universal Pattern Hiding in Plain Sight

This pattern reveals itself everywhere once you start looking:

• The Sanskrit concept of karma ("action") is explicitly about this causality loop

• The Greek myth of Icarus is essentially a FAFO cautionary tale (dude flew too close to the sun and burnt his wax wings)

• Islamic theology speaks of 'amalukum’ ("your deeds return to you")

• Contemporary psychology calls it "natural consequences learning"

• Game theory terms it "iterative discovery through failure states"

It’s awesome. Whether in ancient scriptures or street slang, the same algorithm appears: actions teach, what warnings cannot.

The Cultural Transmission Problem

If this pattern is so universal, why do we have to keep relearning it? Why doesn't the accumulated wisdom of previous generations prevent us from making the same mistakes?

Cultural anthropologists have identified what they call the "transmission degradation problem"—the tendency for wisdom to lose its emotional resonance when passed between generations or cultural contexts.

Consider how these expressions evolve over time:

• Ancient Sanskrit: "As a man himself sows, so he himself reaps"

• King James Bible: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"

• 19th century America: "You made your bed, now lie in it"

• Modern internet: "Fuck around and find out"

Each reformulation isn't just a translation, it's a revitalization.

Harvard linguist Steven Pinker suggests that slang and crude language serve a critical social function: "They maintain the emotional impact of important social concepts that might otherwise lose their force through overuse."

What he means is the crude directness of "fuck around and find out" gives immediate emotional resonance to a concept that might feel abstract or distant in its more formal expressions.

The phrase has become an instantly recognizable meme precisely because it strips away the reverence and formality that often makes ancient wisdom feel distant and inapplicable. 

Imagine going around saying “As a man himself sows, so he himself reaps,” to friends. You will not have friends anymore.

It also explains why my warnings to my kids don’t work. It’s inherited, not experienced. Each generation needs to encode important wisdom in language that feels immediate rather than inherited.

The Two Types of Finding Out

After my photography studio failed, I realized all my "finding out" experiences fell into two fundamental categories:

Predictable Penalties - Usually Not Worth It

This is when warnings are accurate and finding out confirms what you were already told. My photography studio was a classic example. I didn't learn anything special by failing that I couldn't have learned by listening.

Ask yourself: "If the warnings are right, will I discover anything valuable that justifies the cost?" If not, save yourself the pain.

How will I know if the warnings are right? - Do you research, buddy.

Necessary Discoveries - Often Worth the Risk

This is when the potential discovery outweighs the known risks, and there's no other way to obtain the knowledge. Marie Curie's radiation research ultimately harmed her, but revolutionized science. Entrepreneurs testing genuinely new markets often fall into this category.

Ask yourself: "Is there valuable knowledge here that can only be gained through direct experience?" If yes, proceed with calculated risk.

The key difference isn't whether you ignore warnings, but your purpose for doing so. Are you ignoring evidence because of ego or wishful thinking? Or are you consciously stepping into uncertainty because that's the only path to discovery?

The Innovation Paradox

This pattern creates a fascinating tension in innovation and progress. True breakthroughs often require ignoring established wisdom and boundaries, essentially, a willingness to fuck around despite warnings.

The history of innovation is filled with people who refused to accept conventional limitations:

• Einstein's thought experiments challenged Newtonian physics that had been "proven" correct for centuries

• Steve Jobs' insistence on closed hardware ecosystems contradicted prevailing wisdom about open systems

• Florence Nightingale's reforms defied medical authorities who warned her approaches were unnecessary

Yet for every successful innovator, countless others fail precisely because they ignored valid warnings. The difference often lies not in willingness to take risks, but in distinguishing between:

1. Warnings based on a genuine understanding of the terrain

2. Warnings based merely on the maintenance of the status quo

After watching both successful entrepreneurs and failed founders (including myself), you’ll see a pattern: The successful ones didn't ignore warnings entirely—they evaluated which warnings represented actual constraints and which were merely conventional thinking.

How to Short-Circuit the Learning Process

Based on both neuroscience and practical experience, here are three approaches to break this cycle—both for yourself and others:

1. Look For Consequence Stories, Not Just Warnings

Abstract warnings don't activate our emotional learning systems. Detailed stories of consequences do.

When getting advice, ask "What happened when you (or someone you know) ignored this advice?" Specific stories of consequences trigger different neural pathways than general warnings.

2. Create Controlled Experiments

Design small experiments with real but limited consequences.

Instead of avoiding or fully committing to a warned-against action, create a scaled-down version that lets you experience real consequences without catastrophic risk.

3. Distinguish Between Warning Types

Not all warnings are created equal. Categorize them:

• Physical limitations (unbreakable)  

• Evidence-based patterns (usually reliable)

• Social conventions (often arbitrary)

• Status quo preservation (often worth challenging)

Take a recent warning you received. Which category does it fall into? Your approach should differ dramatically based on the answer.

Also examine your personal "finding out" pattern—we each have categories where our ego, desires, or blind spots make us prone to ignore valid warnings. Identifying these patterns helps you recognize vulnerability to repeated mistakes.

The Philosophy and Necessity of Finding Out

From Plato's Cave to Zen "direct pointing," philosophical traditions across cultures recognize that some knowledge requires direct experience. The cave dweller only truly understands the sun by experiencing it—painful as that initial exposure might be.

These approaches converge on the same insight: certain truths cannot be transmitted through language alone; they must be personally claimed.

Not all "finding out" is foolish. Sometimes it's the only way forward.

My photography studio failure was stupid.

But in my product strategy work, I sometimes intentionally operate in the "Necessary Experiment" quadrant—testing approaches others warn against because the potential breakthrough justifies the calculated risk.

The key difference isn't whether I ignore warnings, but how I weigh them against discovery value.

One Truth That Changes Everything

We typically frame "fuck around and find out" as a failure pattern to avoid.

Why would you do that, though? This isn't a bug in human learning—it's the feature that makes innovation, art, science, and progress possible. If we only acted on inherited wisdom, we'd still be living in caves.

As I watch my son navigate his world of doors and hot cups, I'm trying to create an environment where he can safely explore and learn without catastrophic consequences. Because I know he'll ignore some warnings regardless. It's just how human brains are wired.

And as my five-year-old can now tell you, some lessons just hit different when you learn them yourself.

Later,

Parves

What's the most valuable thing you've had to find out for yourself, despite being warned? Did the experience give you knowledge you couldn't have gained any other way? Hit reply—I read every response.