Asking those difficult questions

My whimper of an ending for the last post reminds me of a bad habit I have acquired. for any conversation I usually have a steady stream of tangential questions to ask. The more serious the topic of conversation, the more minutae I just have to know. For instance the other day the topic of the Manchester bombing came up. Horrific, very sad and all that, appalling that people could use nail bombs. But I was seized with the compulsion to know exactly what kind of nails these people prefer to use.
Naturally enough the other party to the discussion dismissed that one as unimportant in the face of human tragedy etc etc. But it woud be hypocritical to pretend genuine grief for the families involved because the notion of the bombing all seems rather abstract and distant from me. At most I can imagine how horrible it would be to be involved, but how does that actually help anyone? I spend much of my life being pissed off with people who spend hours lovingly dissecting each latest violent crime. How horrible, shocking, isn't that terrible? well yes, but isn't saying so bloody redundant? How is it worse for me to be curious about methodology than it is for someone to cream themselves over the victim? But we mustn't voice the unspeakable. No, let's all pretend to wring our hands over people we had no connection with and can't feel any grief over. Part and parcel of that is squashing any train of thought that admits the artificiality of this.