Can anything be prevented?

Question

I have a discussion with someone some hours ago about if someone who i care for can be prevented from causing harm to them self. Most say you can only prepare, but I slightly disagree and say at least some things can be prevented according to how you prepare for them.

Then I found myself thinking, has anything actually ever been prevented? Perhaps in history? What if you prevent certain things from happening, could occur at a later date?

So what do you think? Prevention or just preparation

Answer 1

hangovers can.

Answer 2

Well, what are vaccines for?  (But even as I write this, I find myself wanting to knock wood.)

Answer 3

just prepare for it.

you can try prevention but if you fail then you'll just say it as preparation. and then if you succeed on this preparation then you could also say you prevented it from happening...

we can't stop the time, and all we can do is brace for it.

just an opinion i suppose...

Answer 4

Yes, things have been prevented.

Answer 5

Prevention means changing what was happening or about to happen, and mankind has sure done a lot of that.  Imagine what the world would be like if we hadn't developed these big brains.  So lots can be prevented, but not aging and death.

Answer 6

This is what I think:

Anything can be prevented. You need to know what to prevent. Unfortunately, we are human and we sometimes lack the tools to accomplish this.

The same goes that there is a cure for anything. The problem to that is we do not have knowledge of everything and we do not have infinite time to work on such cures for anything or everything (we are not God).

Again, this is my opinion but I hope it provides some insight!

Answer 7

I guess it depends on how you look at it.  Let's say there's a little old deaf lady crossing the street.  A truck driver falls asleep at the wheel and doesn't see her.  She doesn't hear him.  Her grandson sees what's about to happen, so he runs and pushes her out of the way, just barely saving her life.  By shoving her, he prevented her from getting killed by the truck.  But then later that day, she dies of a heart attack.

There are two ways of looking at this.  On the one hand, he didn't really prevent her from dying.  He only postponed her death.

But on the other hand, he DID prevent her from dying at that particular moment, and he DID prevent her from dying by being hit with a truck.

Answer 8

yes its very important

Answer 9

Since time is a continuum, it never stops. Therefore anything that could have happened can still happen. I think you can "prevent" a thing from happening, but only temporarily, and so by that logical conclusion, there really is no such thing as prevention.