I haven't finished this post yet, but the first section (on "hacking terminal values") seems to be best illumated by the very paragraph in another, older post (by Yvain) I happened to be reading in another tab.

To whit:

When I speak of "terminal goals" I mean actions that feel like ends unto themselves. I am speaking of the stuff you wish you were doing when you're doing boring stuff, the things you do in your free time just because they are fun, the actions you don't need to justify.

This seems like the obvious meaning of "terminal goals" to me, but some of you may think of "terminal goals" more akin to self-endorsed morally sound end-values in some consistent utility function. I'm not talking about those.

... seems to be endorsing changing our "wanting" criteria to better accord with our "approving" criteria, as defined here. Interestingly, this is arguably a clearer version of the situations discussed lower down in that same article.