Unfortunately, even non-specialists have no difficulty tracing causal chains well into the past.

"Screens off" is a term of art in causal modeling. Technically, the present D-separates the past and future. This is visible in e.g. the counterfactual statement, "If the past changed but the present was held fixed, the future would not change; if the present changed but the past was held fixed, the future would change."

the future is fixed2 before I was born

It makes exactly as much sense to say, "The past is fixed fifty years after I am born."