If you bought land veeery far and the nearest person to you is 2km away, is this one still your neighbour? According to the law, your neighbour is not the person next to you or who lives in the fence next door or 1km away.
It is, instead, any person who might reasonably be harmed/injured by what you do (your acts) or what you fail to do (your omissions). For example, if you spread a rumour that you know will injure/harm someone in another country, and as a result of this rumour, this person loses their job. The person about whom you spread the rumour is your neighbour, regardless of distance.
In short, what determines who your neighbour is whether what you do affects them.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN ABOUT WHAT YOU DO?
If you knew that pointing your finger could poke out someone's eye, would you do it?
(If you are normal, ) the answer is NO!. So once you can reasonably foresee that your actions or failure to act injure or harm someone, you must take reasonable care to avoid those acts or omissions. This is called having a duty of care to that person.
How much care or caution you must exercise will obviously be dictated by the likelihood of the risk. If you know you are in a crowded room, you will probably not wave a knife, but if you are alone in a large playground with people metres away, you might, but you will not throw that knife because it might hit someone and injure them. That is an example of how you might weigh risk.
Source: BarefootLawyers.
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