As one pushes into the tails of risks bc ones lifespan grows arbitrarily long, the logical conclusion is that one must control the entire universe in order to control all possible threats. Uncontrolled processes must eventually be curtailed. And a smart wizard sees this far enough in advance that they try to move for decisive strategic advantage now. The general trope is that they then fail to see the consequences of self modification corrupting the things they cared about anyway, which is also weirdly prescient, as it turns out that this really is a wicked problem, philosophically, computationally etc.
The repeating motif in fantasy that fear-of-death makes wizards omnicidal has turned out to be weirdly prescient.
As one pushes into the tails of risks bc ones lifespan grows arbitrarily long, the logical conclusion is that one must control the entire universe in order to control all possible threats. Uncontrolled processes must eventually be curtailed. And a smart wizard sees this far enough in advance that they try to move for decisive strategic advantage now. The general trope is that they then fail to see the consequences of self modification corrupting the things they cared about anyway, which is also weirdly prescient, as it turns out that this really is a wicked problem, philosophically, computationally etc.