ok in no way am I an expert on computer cpu architecture but that article is from 2016. 8 years ago. maybe things have changed since then. with new cpus that intel put out. at this point we are talking about 8+ year old cpus. maybe it's time to upgrade if someone has concerns about the safety of their computing platform.
Now I know that Management Engine has no reason to be used on home systems the way it is designed, but if someone really doesn't like this feature, they can run a version of the Linux kernel that has disabled vPro support (and whatever the counterpart is called in AMD). No need for strange rituals of using ancient hardware with obscure distributions like what Richard Stallman is doing.