I'm noticing a trend

It's a tricky business isn't it?

There are several angles to this phenomenon, each easily worth it's own thread.. gosh, I wonder how to approach this. Here goes a try.

Truth-Seeking? and the discovery of Reality?

My personal, and biased opinion of the Se/Ni duality (and I don't draw much difference in which comes up first) is that it actually seems more suited toward both understanding and anticipating "reality." My own journey has been largely informed by, and guided by, Ni/Se users who continually show-me-up with their ability to see the world in a way that my own Ti actually likes a lot better than Ne.

I no longer understand the envy others may feel with touted phrases like "I'm constantly in a daydream", "I don't look at details, I just see a general picture". Speaking as a logical type, I actually find this to be precisely the type of attitude and perception that is most counter to truth-seeking. Existing within a daydream doesn't bring you closer to truth. And that starts to hit home when you realize that the absence of that accurate perception lends to a lot of suffering, misunderstandings in relationships and just downright logistical screw-ups.

After one gets past the delusion that N is more insightful than S, and sees that the quality of abstraction itself does not lend all the attributes it's often aggrandized with, you realize that N is far from being insightful when on its own. It takes the entire cognitive machinery to achieve any sort of coherence. Each information element is like a car part that can't do anything on its own.

In its purest form, N is rather like the fallacy of correlation=causation. This certainly goes for Ne, which by itself is completely unconcerned with correlations being accurate, so long as things fit in novel ways. And Ni by itself can become very superstitious and anticipate things to be related in causality by some invisible force.

I'm quite certain, in fact, that the intellectual opinion of the world far prefers Se and Si because they are far more verifiable and measurable information processes. That's one angle.

Aspiration vs Ability

So it's almost become a platitude; a sort of courteous (but really quite patronizing) trend for the mbti community to attempt to re-balance the scales by giving the S functions "equality."

But Se and Si don't really need any charity. Half of what people attribute to Ne and Ni is actually Se and Si. It's not that Se and Si need to be equalized, it's that Ne and Ni have actually been misconceived and need to be simplified. Actually, the descriptions of all the 8 functions are wrongfully described in the affirmative not in "the attempt."

For example we have "you see the deeper truths beneath the present reality and always view the big picture"

But aspiration does not equal success. No function could really claim that above statement as belonging to their processing. We can claim to try and see the world in a specific way, but whether we prevail and do it right is a whole different matter/question. It's egocentric to suppose we automatically succeed in figuring out reality or the truth, just because we have a certain function, and this is the fundamental flaw in the MBTI's choice of words. But by conflating aspiration with success, the functions and general attitudes (N/S/T/F/I/E) are described as innate abilities to know the universe somehow, rather than the painful struggles that they are... to grasp at some kernels of reality. That's the second angle.

What is the actual truth? what does the data show?

The third angle, is the evidence. There is no need to play diplomat and try to make all types feel equal based on conceptual acrobatics when the data itself will show it far better, and with no need to feign. Achievements shouldn't be connected to types, but as a simple exercise of comparison, we see that SeFi Natalie Portman is a Harvard graduate, FiSe Marissa Mayers is a CEO of a multibillion dollar company, my biggest hero TiSe Elon Musk pioneering SpaceX, Tesla Motors and SolarCity, and the list is endless...

Why an insult, why a compliment?

Yet another angle of this is Self Identity. It is quite natural for the question of type and self identity to become conflated, but it's also a really bad idea to make it a pillar of self esteem. One can feel proud to belong to the same type as the intellectual NeFi Einstein, but he belongs to the same type as NeFi Britney Spears. (which in the mbti are INTP and ESFP respectively)

Pride by affiliation becomes a rather fickle source of confirmation to look for in CT, as CT doesn't really work as a theory to gain that type of self praise. As is the case in many other sciences, learning CT actually humbles you to the fact that humans share a lot more with each other -- in terms of limitations, developmental hurdles, etc -- than previously thought. And what makes the difference between genius and mundanity is personal development.

Being called a certain type ceases to be a conceptual and linguistic slur, and actually becomes a verifiable or negatable fact-statement. It's like someone telling you you're asian but you're really hispanic. We know what the types look like, so we can tell if it's true or not as a simple truth. But if even beyond that, there's people making type-wide discriminatory statements, well we wouldn't tolerate that here.

Implicit, Self-Projected Biases?

Now this next point is more subtle.

I'll start with an example, then work into the conclusion. My SeTi brother is an unashamed hedonist. He's awfully clever in his methodology, but he's quite motivated by maximizing his immediate experience. He knows he's vain, he knows he's "shallow" in his judgment of women, but he's also very intelligent and philosophical overall.

If someone asks me whether I think SeTi's are shallow hedonists, I might reply "sometimes". Because that is a reality, and that statement shouldn't feel like a threat to other people's self-identity. They are not my brother.

Also, the hedonistic lifestyle isn't actually condemned in all circles (cultures or philosophies). Being a preppy girl who likes shoe-shopping and lipstick also isn't "bad". We have to understand that if we confine ourselves to a sort of political correctness where we wish to stray away from stereotypes that have some sort of negative connotation, we also step further away from reality.

In other words, it's not the solution to try and steer away our understandings of the types away from behaviors and lifestyles we somehow deem as lesser --- but instead, we need to gain a broader appreciation for all these lifestyles. Acknowledge their elements of simplicity as well as complexity.

The stereotypes of the 16 types are things that exist, we shouldn't deny that, but they also aren't a limit -- because CT, unlike MBTI, isn't defined by the type description itself. Each type's description has the potential to expand endlessly (and we'll be doing so via the twin shades mandala), but that won't mean recurring themes won't be noticed.

We are all simpletons. We are all idiots. We are all awesome. <3
At least... that's my view of it o.o

Thank you Seth and Erifrail, for your thoughtful responses. I think this topic is just one granule of salt in a long open wound. I've always struggled with feelings of not being accepted, and it's been worse lately because I'm seeing it reflected in my older children. I suppose I'm extra sensitive at this very moment, and it took a day of reflection to realize this.
That being said, I do feel like there is a general disregard for the intellectual capabilities of individuals which are Se or Si lead, across systems of typing. I always like to champion for the underdog, so I still feel this subject deserves a closer look. If nothing else, challenging people to examine their own bias from time to time is a good thing, imo. I agree that being a Se lead who fits the stereotypes is not a bad thing, and being one's authentic self is so very important. My point is, if people treat a Se lead like something undesirable, it will create the same division and ousting of types of people found in mbti forums. Thank you again for your responses! I do enjoy the openness in this space.