I think calling it MBTI (or sticking to only MBTI tenets) is beside the point. This whole deal of personality typing, whether you call it MBTI, typology, Socionics, or your mother, is being misused and that's what I think the OP was getting at. Not everyone here does, but there are a few that try to force-fit typology into explaining every crevice of human psychology.
Well, I can agree that that's kind of silly, but I also think it's pretty uncommon.
I also don't really think it's that big a deal. It's just a discussion forum, after all. People come here to bounce around whatever random ideas they happen to be considering; often it's just harmless brainstorming that never really gets applied to real life. Especially with some people, asking, "I wonder if there's a connection here" is virtually automatic, even fleshing out theories as to how there
might be a connection--but it's all just hypothetical chatter, and I think more people realize that about their own discussions than you seem to think.
Typology is just a form of philosophy anyway, and very few people (save for the NTJs who are still trying to "prove" or "disprove" it, meaningless terms in philosophy) seem to expect more out of it than that. Wondering aloud about a potential connection doesn't mean we've put dogmatic faith in it.
You know what? You're right.
This thread was a joke.
You have great insight, man.
Keep going about your business, everyone. You're all set. You're all going to do great.
hardy har. Seriously though my point was that this is an important distinction because "typology" is conceptually separate from "MBTI." MBTI is one definite and complete closed system that never changes. Typology is a broader term covering a wide variety of different ideas on this topic, many of which disagree with each other and most of which are constantly evolving. It's silly to overapply the former, sure, but the latter is something completely different and obviously has a lot more implications than the former...if typology is capable of changing to accommodate reality (as it does constantly), and as MBTI is
not, then why should typology have any theoretical limitations? How could it be overapplied?
At the end of the day it's just an elaborate categorization system, and its limitations are defined solely by the extent of its external information input. As we gain more information regarding psychology and reality, our elaborate categorization system refines and adapts to reflect it...thus, the implications are literally endless.
I wasn't trying to needle you; this is really, really significantly different from "overapplying MBTI." They're just extremely different things.