The ubiquity of idiocy

My friend Jim asserts that everyone he meets is "such an idiot". Now if we we are to parse that statement, there are many troubling things that emerge.

Let's take this down two lines of reasoning:
1. Everyone that Jim meets is an idiot.
2. Everyone that Jim meets is not really an idiot, but Jim merely thinks so.

Line of Reasoning 1: If everyone that Jim meets is really an idiot, Jim needs to meet new new people in the hope that he can find someone who is not an idiot. But Jim is not going to see 40 again, and he is a well travelled and sociable man. So Jim has in the course of his life, met a great many people. If every one of them has turned out to be an idiot, then one despairs for his chance to ever meet someone who is not an idiot, well into the afternoon of his life. So what should our Jim do? Give up the quest for the elusive non-idiot, or shun all social contact secure in the knowledge that everyone he meets will for certain, be an idiot?

Line of Reasoning 2: If everyone Jim meets is not really an idiot, but Jim merely thinks so, then this causes us to question Jim's veracity. Is this just hyperbole? Is Jim merely saying 'Everyone I meet is such an idiot' when he really doesn't mean everyone, but a lot of people. And when he says someone is an idiot, is he really saying that person is not really an idiot but rather just not synchronous with Jim's own sensibilities?
I cannot for a moment doubt that my friend Jim is saying anything other than that which he means.

So where is all this sophistry leading? Just to the fact that when we express ourselves, we tend to exaggerate to illustrate the point. Hyperbole. To take hyperbole literally is to miss the point.

In my earlier post on the Nikon vs. Canon DSLR Wars my intention was not to suggest that everyone was to go out and buy 3 Nikon cameras for every Canon EOS 5D, but rather to illustrate the relative price performance of the 5D to other cameras. Biased? Maybe. Insane? Not so much.

That said, why is everyone that Jim meets such an idiot? Have they all bought Canon cameras?