"And again, exactly what are they mining out of my computer when I don't put anything in it?"

Nothing, absolutely nothing, but don't you see how you're contradicting yourself there?

What's the point in having a computer and the convenience of, say, being able to pay online in an instant, if you're scared to use it?  People should not have to be concerned about using a piece of hardware and software that they own, and no company should ever have control over other peoples systems, we should be able to trust what is in our own homes with absolutely no holdbacks at all - your home is your own private space - not a freaking playground for every corporate tosser who feels like it, to dip their corrupt noses in.

Unfortunately, we cannot trust commercial OS's so we absolutely need to take steps to prevent the snooping and data-mining that goes on.  You do that by starting off with a trusted and open OS.  I get you have a system you cannot get data-mined from, but if the reason for that is "because you don't use it"  - it's not really relevant to what we've all been discussing here.

There will come a time when there is no such thing as cash, and absolutely everything you need to do, will have to be done using your computer or whatever.  When that time comes (and it's not too far away from the looks of it) you are going to have to use that computer or some device, for the things you are currently not prepared to use it for - you won't have a choice in the future.