Eh, I think that's discounting it too far in the other direction.
MBTI is a mostly arbitrary and limited categorization system with very shaky psychological/sociological grounding, but it still is grounded on parts of personality / who people are to some degree. There are tons of misuses of MBTI from trying to gain personal predictive insight, adhering to a single "type" because you tested as it once, and the written descriptions of the types themselves on many sites do indeed use tricks used in horoscopes.
However, when you take it for what it is, an arbitrary classification tool with very light social science backing, there are insights you can learn from when it comes to how people interact or at least how they approach different problems/ideas/situations in a broad sense, as well as a few other actual practical but limited applications.
You would never be able to use it to say "I'm high strung because I'm INTJ", but you can use it to the point of "Oh hey person X and Y are having issue Z communicating, perhaps it's explained because one is an S and the other in an N. Not because one is S and one is N, but because, if properly categorized (big if), it would make some general statements about communication that could be applicable to a situation.
All this said, I know MBTI comes up in some offices and I have never once heard of a proper/successful use of it, so it's wide misuse and misunderstanding of its nature probably does make it the programmer's version of astrology. Just wanted to point out that astrology and MBTI, as much as people love to compare them, are quite different.
MBTI is a mostly arbitrary and limited categorization system with very shaky psychological/sociological grounding, but it still is grounded on parts of personality / who people are to some degree. There are tons of misuses of MBTI from trying to gain personal predictive insight, adhering to a single "type" because you tested as it once, and the written descriptions of the types themselves on many sites do indeed use tricks used in horoscopes.
However, when you take it for what it is, an arbitrary classification tool with very light social science backing, there are insights you can learn from when it comes to how people interact or at least how they approach different problems/ideas/situations in a broad sense, as well as a few other actual practical but limited applications.
You would never be able to use it to say "I'm high strung because I'm INTJ", but you can use it to the point of "Oh hey person X and Y are having issue Z communicating, perhaps it's explained because one is an S and the other in an N. Not because one is S and one is N, but because, if properly categorized (big if), it would make some general statements about communication that could be applicable to a situation.
All this said, I know MBTI comes up in some offices and I have never once heard of a proper/successful use of it, so it's wide misuse and misunderstanding of its nature probably does make it the programmer's version of astrology. Just wanted to point out that astrology and MBTI, as much as people love to compare them, are quite different.