Why are we killing ourselves trying to make an artificial cochlea for our listening devices? Why don’t we take something that already has a perfectly well-functioning cochlea, and turn it into a listening device?” “Eureka, what a brilliant idea!” exclaimed his fellow CIA scientists. (Now, I am totally just making this conversation up—this is how it plays out in my historical imagination. Of course, it’s just as likely that his colleagues referred him to the CIA’s substance abuse program. But indulge me.) “But what animal should we use? A dog would be too conspicuous. Even the evil communists
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