Lots of witty quotes in this article, such as: ... the true tests (such as the dissertation requirement) in graduate school are really designed to discover whether at some point one is willing to just turn the damn thing in. The willingness to do hard, mundane work may be the most under-rated quality in all of modern life. I think too little is made of the how the Internet and its various forms of instant entertainme…
I don't think this is underrated at all. Primary and secondary education is largely intended to train people to sit still doing mundane work all day IMO.
I think it is, at least nowadays. In my experiences as a teacher, most just aren't doing it anymore. They're not doing anything besides playing on their phones. I'd love to have students who would just do their work. And I think it was true in the past, even before the curse of smartphones. Kids would find other ways to avoid doing their work, and the ones who succeeded were the ones who did it.