The optimized future and the problem of taking responsibility

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White on White (1918). MoMA, New York. In Red Pill: A novel ( Knopf, 2020 ), Hari Kunzru composes a particularly sharp image of one of the possible futures most consistent with trends already underway. The diagnosis is filtered through the gaze of the novel's narrator-protagonist, a New York–based writer who arrives on a fellowship at a residency at the…