> "an effect that is an immediate result of an event, incident, or occurrence." The semantics are far less important here than the principle. What's an appropr

> "an effect that is an immediate result of an event, incident, or occurrence." The semantics are far less important here than the principle. What's an appropriate "immediate" term after which one can wash their hands of triggering a long chain of unfortunate events? Where does the first link end? A year? Five? Ten? 24? If you ignore long term effects many actions seem completely harmless. A fire can be started with a few sparks, an avalanche with a few snowflakes. Lighting a fire won't make you responsible just for the "direct consequences" of a flame appearing but for all the consequences. Throwing a punch won't make you responsible just for the direct consequence of pain to the jaw but also for the person dying in the subsequent fall. And you may argue that a fire has no "choice" but to burn, while humans have self determination. But we already know that an individual might act unpredictably but a whole population is quite predictable. Those actions were intended to cause exactly the harm that they did, as predicted. And they should be judges as such.