That's great advice, don't share on internet anything about you, especially not your computer configuration, be careful what you share on forums too.
I think thats ok but "I work / worked for the gov" actually does make you a target
Which gov?
If you have to share computer config or logs, anonymize it with LLM such as private IP addresses or usernames.
LLMs are not bullet-proof and might miss something, so I wouldn't trust them with that. Maybe use LLMs and proof read.
But I mean cmon, this is linux.org forum, we are talking about installing linux mint..
Just make backups. The chinese / russians / NSA / whatever else cyber cyber is already r00t on your box. Is that really a problem? Does that have any real-world implications?
Use your workstation normally, do backups every now and then, if you want to learn about security or have the best reasonable security you can get use qubes, if you want to be as private as reasonably possible use whonix on qubes.
If you want more see it as a hobby, not as a necessity.