el dang started reading The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
Some inhabitants of a peaceful kingdom cannot tolerate the act of cruelty that underlies its …
In the strange hybrid acknowledgements / epilogue to Cahokia Jazz, Spufford mentions this story as evidence that Ursula Le Guin (to whom the book is dedicated) wouldn't have liked the world he built. I've somehow got to now without having read Omelas so I'd better fix that now.