How can one apply a rule more than universally? Wouldn’t too universally be the same thing as just universally? put differently, how can you do something MORE universally than universally?

asking for a friend

Are you saying that it applies ... universally?

No, I'm not. I am saying that it probably applies more universally than we think it does.

(Unless you think it applies absolutely universally, in which case... yeah.)

They were joking along the not quite paradoxical lines that it would then apply to itself and be an anti-pattern.