If you have no idea what you’re doing, then you should not be transmitting. There’s plenty of good clean fun to be had on the receive side, though.

There are some more expensive options that do but it's not recommended if you don't have a amateur radio license

For some values of "those" yes, for others No. Some are receivers that can only receive but you can also get transmitters or transceivers that will do both. Most of the cheap dongles are receive only. Disclaimer: Your local laws regarding the legality of transmitting (or even receiving) on a particular frequency at any given power may vary.

Receiving radio is perfectly fine and you aren't at risk of interfering with anyone.

Transmiting is very "dangerous" if you don't know what you're doing, and likely illegal unless you're licensed (you're only allowed to broadcast on certain frequencies below certain power limits without a license, but you can still cause trouble).

Tl;Dr Please do not experiment with transmitting if you don't know what you're doing.

For various reasons (such as, it can cause interference), I do not want to transmit, and would rather have one that cannot transmit or that has a hardware switch to disable transmitting when you do not want to transmit.

That’s correct.