Um, I really don't think so. This argument appears to imply that, if "conservatism" is a costly, complex and unreliable effort to keep a system somewhere between two or more "attractor" end-points, then one should seriously try to predict what those end-points could be like, and whether facilitating a gradual "slide" towards one of them could not be a better use of time and resources then keeping up the unstable equilibrium.

Um no, conservatism is an attempt to keep society at a relatively stable point.

What makes societies stable is being at Schelling points, and one way a Schelling point can be stable is to have an established tradition behind it. Another way to have a stable Schelling point is to move it to a maximally extreme position, the problem with this approach is that it's nearly always possible to become more extreme and the society will collapse before you can become extreme enough. Ok, a counter movement frequently occurs when society starts to collapse pushing the trend in the other direction, but you seem to be arguing against such movements.

It might make more sense even for a person who dislikes some particular accompanying changes to consider the range of probable outcomes for such trends - and whether trying to ensure a better, less destructive transition to such an outcome could be more worthwhile than a hopeless defense of the current state or trying to launch a counter-trend.

Looking at history there are also many inevitable-seeming trends that failed or were even reversed, e.g., the trend towards absolute monarchy in the 18th century, the rise of eugenics in the early 20th century, the expansion of communism in the late 20th century.

(With the above examples: improving sex ed and correcting biased feminist/etc dogma instead of preaching puritanism/monogamy. Providing citizens with ways to spy back on their governments and corporations instead of trying to curb the ominpresent surveillance. Developing better expert-driven, liberty-preserving political systems, like futarchy, instead of clinging to the facade of elected officials driving policy.)

I have another example for you: with the trend towards a wider acceptance of torture (e.g., war on terror) we should manage it my formulating rules for when torture is and isn't acceptable rather than keeping to a no torture policy.

Meanwhile, attempting to keep a society, its politics or culture in a stasis has had ended with an uncontrollable shift (late USSR) or an explosion (Chinese Empire, Japanese Shogunate) every single time.

It only seems this way because the instances when a society failed to change are less memorable.