It is a curse because the thoughtful person quickly becomes aware of all the things that COULD, theoretically, happen. The bad possibilities are endless, and there really is no final way to conclude all of them are impossible.
200 years ago, there were troubles, too, but they were things like your horse breaking a leg, or a bad harvest, or illness.
Paradoxically, I suspect that despite all our material progress, despite the eradication of most major germ-related diseases, despite the eradication of most hunger and want, we are more worried than ever, and this is because of abstraction.
As I ponder this, I think this might be the root of the authoritarian impulses within our intelligentsia. Being intelligent by definition, they are well anchored in abstraction, and well aware of the many bad things that COULD happen (even if some, like overpopulation and Global Warming, seem easily dismissable), want some FINAL answer (might we say Endloesung?) so that they can relax, so that their minds can finally rest at ease, now that everyone has a place, and mistakes and disasters are at least THEORETICALLY eradicated from the system.
There is something important here, I think. I’ve gone down this approximate path before, but perhaps not quite this way.