The call to "pace the frontier" may come from genuine concern, but it also protects the position of companies already at the frontier. That competitive incentive is hard to separate from the safety argument.
Dario signed the Pacing the Frontier open letter when Fable/Mythos seemed from the outside to be an insurmountable lead.
Also he's been saying versions of this day in and day out for as long as he has had anyone's ear.
It's possible to read that his "strategic" value of this statement is higher now than it was 10 days ago. But that doesn't change anything about his consistent, long standing, positions.