You don't understand because baked into your entire reply is the assumption that a decent standard of living is guaranteed.

Based on current trends around economic inequality, it seems quite likely that the average person may be given very little to subsist on once their main source of leverage (their ability to perform valuable labor) has been removed.

also there is a sort of exposure to the environment that we're just starting to recognize in the era of climate change: e.g. your ancestors felt out of control of their lives and prayed to the gods for a good harvest back before the empire came with its soldiers and scribes and took away their religion.