You probably want to use your phone’s front-facing camera to look for other cameras that aren’t obvious.

…And what would Tails be?

Win 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC is what you want. It comes with a grand total of zero drivers, so you’ll need to download them to a USB drive before installing, otherwise you won’t even be able to get online because there’s no driver for the ethernet or WiFi. You can even uninstall Edge! (Which you should definitely do.) I think that massgrave.dev is considered reputable for downloading and activating, which is done by shell scripts. You should be able to turn off pretty much all telemetry on it.

this at least has real links to tangible asset worth,

Well, kind of. But the worth of those assets is largely due to perception, rather than real utility value. Like, real estate is stupidly expensive in many places, but it’s expensive because people believe that it’s expensive. When real estate bubble burst, you see the ‘worth’ of that real estate drop sharply. The utility value is having a place to sleep, but it’s often treated as an investment. So you would still see currency value fluctuations. Currency issue by gov’ts largely has worth because the gov’t says that it has worth; it’s not tied to anything. (BTW - tying currency to a tangible asset limits your ability to add currency when necessary. It will tend to lead to depreciation–the value of the currency rising–which is usually a bad thing.)

The other problem is that corporations and banks go bust; if they were issuing currency, that would mean all your money would instantly be worthless.

Ideally, no one controls it. It’s just exists as a medium for exchange.

There are both good and bad points to currency have value that can be adjusted by gov’ts; crypto currency solves one set of problems, but has it’s own, inherent issues.

Assuming that your backup isn’t also infected.

Doesn’t have to be in the bank either; if you’re traveling with your life savings in cash, then if you get pulled over cops are likely to seize that money. Just because fuck you, that’s why.

No, the “entire planet” has decided that states ultimately own your property–and you, since you don’t have absolute, individual bodily autonomy–and we use an incorrect shorthand in the way we verbally talk about property rights.

Yes, a vampire could enter with a warrant, whether or not you invited him in. The state ultimately ‘owns’ your property; if it didn’t, then it couldn’t kick you out and seize it if you don’t pay property taxes. So therefore the state has the authority to give a vampire the right to enter your dwelling. (But what if the warrant was illegally issued, and so the vampire didn’t have actual permission to enter? Hmmmm.) Similarly, if you rented an apartment, your landlord could give a vampire permission to enter for a valid reason, e.g., the vampire worked maintenance, and you had a water leak that was damaging another apartment and needed immediate access.