Knock-On Effects May Dominate Direct Effects

Any act of saving or helping a person sets off a vast stream of downstream consequences—the person innovates, has children, emits CO2, creates art, makes the country richer—stretching from now until the end of time, and it is quite plausible that these hard-to-predict knock-on effects are far larger in magnitude than the direct short-term benefit, though for consistency one must apply this lens equally to all causes being compared.