Thats an excellent way of explaining Fi thought processes. An Fi user is his or her own check and balance. What happens when everyone but the Fi user sees this? Granted, there is such thing as consensus and there comes a point when, to use my prior example of the ISFP, the consensus of her co-workers is that she does have a double standard. Does Fi just ignore this? How do you get an Fi Dom to see this?
This is certainly a danger for Fi because everything is internally verified. We put little stock in the group consensus because we think it can be so easily corrupted (not that we ignore that consensus entirely).
I can't speak for other Fi users, but I am committed to avoiding hypocrisy. This doesn't mean I always do, but I am always testing (theoretically or practically) a value or truth I ascribe to, in order to see if it works in all situations or if other actions/values contradict it. Perhaps your friends haven't developed their Si and Te sufficiently, and can't (or won't) hear your reasoning. Sometimes Fi-users ascribe to a truth/value and then in their hubris, lay back thinking that's good enough; not fully realising, or forgetting, that Fi requires constant vigilance and re-evaluation for it to work effectively.
This doesn't mean Fi-users are stubbornly unreachable. Fi doms are known to be good listeners and are among the most open-minded types. Sometimes it's just a matter of putting things in the right words or context that it makes the information really click. See, like Ti Doms, we don't just take people's word for it; we have to see how those pieces can fit together based on our internal logic before we can properly accept it.
Are you a communist?
I'm just kidding, but that's where the level of discourse went in that thread.
Sometimes opinions are needed to be heard, and other times it gets old quickly. Esp. when the proposed course of action has already taken into consideration those opinions and determined that other things trump the desires of a few individuals. There are many things that bother me or annoy me, but I don't really talk about them because it's just a personal issue. When that personal annoyance lines up with a larger problem is when I speak up (otherwise I just save it for a one time rant).
Oh, I know what you mean. I also tired of too much pointless waffle. For me, it has to be meaningful discussion. If it starts going in circles or veers into ridiculous tangents, I start mentally wandering. The thing is, different people have different ideas about what's meaningful...
I guess, perhaps for the NFPs anyway, we don't really distinguish between personal issues and larger problems. That's not to say we imagine our personal issues
are large problems, it's just that we think a problem is a problem; no matter how big or trivial it is, it's still something on our mind worth exploring. Also, sometimes we like to talk about it simply because it's nice to have something you think or feel be affirmed and reflected in another. You know, this sort of thing:
Person A: "I find X irritating."
Person B: "You do? So do I! I was just thinking yesterday how annoying it is."
Person A: "Really? I thought I was the only one who noticed."
In the scheme of things, X might not be annoying on the same level as your car breaking down or having your wallet stolen but that's not really the point. It's more about a sense of connection and commonality. With FPs (again, maybe NFPs in particular), we often like to demonstrate empathy through talking about our own experiences in a similar situation, to show others they're not alone or just to not feel so alone ourselves.
And like I said, often it's just talk for the sake of it - it's not necessarily a demand that something should be changed. I do understand your point that people shouldn't complain unless it's important, though. I suppose people see this as a place to discuss things, even the trivial kind, and they can get a bit carried away. 'White people's problems', you know...
with a shotgun saying "git offa mah land!"
