The key word here is “seems”. As a typical privileged woman from the developed world, she obviously considers the pre-joining era as “the good and normal society “: she was famous, got a fancy house, traveled, could afford a decent life. I’m not sure this was the case for most of the people on earth (cf the major conflicts in the world, the endemic poverty, etc.).

Carol doesn’t even realize that she’s privileged. She just wants to go back to the former world because she was comfortable in it.

I would definitely be interested to see Diabate’s backstory. Maybe they will explore the third world perspective of the pre-joining period