> back doors and opportunity for dystopian political regimes
No, this is a misunderstanding of what a TPM is.
A TPM is a secure element inside your computer, similar to the chip running your credit and debit card. That's it. Without you using it (i.e. your OS or an application you installed asking it to do something), it's exactly as dangerous as a blank chip card in your house that you don't use and didn't open any account for.
If you don't want anybody to talk to it, don't install applications or OSes on your computer that do things you don't want. You have full control over that! Not running software that's not acting in your own best interests is generally good practice anyway, TPM or no TPM.
> [...] a small dedicated hardware element for signing fingerprints is all that's ever been required [...]
You might be happy to hear that that's exactly what a TPM is, then!
