How many edges in road Stop Sign?

Friends, I want to share with some small experiences with you and hope to get enlightened a bit. 

In years, I have asked people one simple question and many people maybe want to laugh at the "stupid" question he was asked. The question is:

"How many edges in Stop Sign"? 

We may drive our cars every day, and probably saw tens of thousands of Stop Sign already, how could that become a question? It is so obvious.

Actually, 70% of the people who answered this question get it wrong (observed from my many years test experience)

So please give an answer yourself and Google search "Stop Sign" and see the answers. How's it?

OK, let's see another common questions.

How much volume the Sun bigger than Earth?

In one of my team event, this question above was asked, and the team (>10 people) have given different answers, varying from one hundred to one billion (I am the one giving the dumbest answer -:) ).

The right answer is 1.3 million. We live on earth every day and we saw the sun every day, but why people judge so differently on such a common thing?

Why?

Is it because we really do not "care" it even if it is such a common thing. Is it because we are really not "mindful" on it even if we see it every day?

But, the weird thing is that even if you not mindful and since we see every day, more or less the guess should be roughly right and why 70% not getting things right on the edges of stop sign? And why the difference on the answers on Sun's volume is such huge.

Maybe there is a deep reason for that problem. I thought more and more and I think I have gotten the answer it is the "ego" thing playing a role here.

"a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance." - From dictionary.

"ego" is the self-confidence based on certain assumptions of their experiences. For example why I gave my guess "100" (for the sun question) - it is because I have assumed I have seen solar system pictures before and use the picture to guess the volume difference. But with these assumptions could be poisons and it could be worse than un-known when you used that assumption to argue with people.

70% arguments are based on wrong assumptions - do you agree?

What enlightened me from here - so let's get rid of our ego, pay attention, care, be mindful on things and really research multiple dimensions of the object, deep into it and understand the truth, and most important, if we do not know, admit it "do not know" and do not assume! And when research a topic, research a few dimensions of the aspect and deep into each dimension and shall find more truth of the object. The founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma once told in one conference I attended: when you believe and into one thing, do not give up, spend 5 years on it and try to improve every day and you shall possibly achieve something really meaningful. Because in 5 years, you may get rid of lots of "noise" of the subject and find the true face of the world.

Friends, have a great day!