As people have pointed out, wanting information about an event so they can better understand what it means and where it might lead to is completely valid and sometimes valuable. The “sometimes” is the key point.
Sometimes, probably much of the time or even most of the time, the speculation is worthless noise. It subtracts from knowledge and understanding. When the event actually occurs, there are bound to be people suspicious of the reality and subject to believing that outside forces must have interfered. You might say this doesn’t happen on the Dope, but it exactly describes the way Q manipulated his followers. This is not a slippery slope argument; I’m saying wherever you are on that spectrum is problematic.
On the flip side, the world demands every day that you pick the valuable information out of the deluge of stuff you see and hear. Speculation is a small part of that. Still, more of bad stuff isn’t the solution despite it being fun and tempting. Even too many cookies can kill you.
I wonder if a lot of the appeal of such entertainment comes from the comforting sense of completeness is gives. By that I mean, we are presented with a world where all complicated questions can be answered and loose ends can be tied up in the space of 400 pages or a couple of hours. That has to be very appealing to us pattern-seeking mammals. It is certainly something that real life event rarely give us.
Two things come to mind. The first is that I’m testing my view of the world. If my view is accurate, I should be able to make accurate predictions. The more I try, the more I refine that view, and the better I get. And I would like to understand the world. Plus, like any other discussion, I get to see what other people think, both about the situation and my prediction. So that helps me get better as well.
The more common one lately, however, is rebutting people who I believe are too pessimistic, as I believe that pessimism plus confirmation bias leads to actions (or, more commonly, inaction) that becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you don’t believe things can go well, you give up. Thus I feel the need to put out a more realistic view.
And, yes, I know that sometimes defeatist positions are just about sharing one’s feelings. But then the idea is that my more realistic evaluation might cheer them up.
(And I say more realistic because I do not want to be someone who is relentlessly positive, as that can be a problem, too. You do need to know the real chances. I just hate defeatism.)
People who’ve been exposed to emotionally abusive or manipulative relationships often develop a NEED to overthink every little thing, every possibility, it’s a well known and widely displayed trauma response.
If the scenario involves predicting a ‘sky will fall’, disaster that will surely ensue, well, that’s called catastrophizing, and that’s also a frequent, and well established trauma response.
That’s why people can’t resist sometimes, it’s a coping mechanism.