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Yeah, this piece ended up being worse than I expected. There's a lot to pick apart here, but one thing I'll not in particular is the way they characterize states using the threat to consolidate power as "conspiratorial thinking". Typically, I associate "conspiracies" with plots that revolve around proportionally small in-groups with knowledge that the out-group does not have. Obviously there has been some of that, but I don't think that's the claim that's being made by most leftists or anarchists. The problem isn't that there's some deep state cabal who is pulling strings to machinate the pandemic into an advantageous position for their power, so much as there being sweeping social and political changes in the name of an emergency that have no obvious checks. E.g., now that there's precedent for tracking individuals for health reasons via cell phones (something previously used for criminal cases only, and with significant oversight, at least in the west), what's to stop the state's further use of this for general aggregate health and city planning? People have been opposed to the Google Sidewalk Labs project, but after this, will that sort of pervasive passive surveillance even be considered abnormal? We might be looking at months or years of successive waves of this virus, will the lockdowns become a thing of habit? And if so, what does that mean for things like mass protests like we saw in Hong Kong? None of these concerns require shadowy figures making back room deals, they're right in front of our faces, being defended across the political spectrum in the name of what we "owe" to people.