I haven’t read the book but I imagine the author meant that govts and companies took the opportunity to use it as an experiment - of sorts. Just like I imagine they do, opportunistically, for all sorts of things…

Tbh nothing would surprise me Tom! I just think that 95% of the time those evil entities are opportunistic - so while they might not plan to carry out certain events (tho I suspect they also do carry some out) that when those events happen they use them for their own purpose or experiments, possibly having already accounted for them.

You just need to follow the money - money/greed and the desire for power is the root of all evil