What I'm referring to in paragraphs 2 and 4 are similar enough that what differences may exist between them don't especially matter to any point I'm making.

Are you saying that Nick Szabo's position depends on (or at least is helped by) viewing one's later values as quite possibly better than current ones?

No, and in fact I don't believe that. Better to say that, insofar as an important component of Friendliness research is working out ways to avoid value drift, the OP's preference for Friendliness research over security research is reinforced by a model of the world in which value drift is a problem to be avoided/fixed rather than simply a neutral feature of the world.