[이대승] Blockchain questions about inequality

[출처: 셔터스톡]

[이대승’s 블록체인 헬스케어] Corona reveals that access to assets has been unequal. Now, if you don’t handle your smartphone properly, you can’t order and eat food at will. It is difficult to attend school without computers and internet. As the prices of all kinds of assets are soaring, the difference between those who have them and those who do not are rapidly growing. In the era of thunderbolts, not thunderbolts, the relative deprivation is growing. The imbalance between supply and demand for limited resources exacerbates inequality in the world.

#Intensifying competition for medical resources… Have you come up with a proposal to use blockchain?

Medical resources are even more intense. Do you remember when there was a mask riot In April 2020, in the Ile-de-France region of the metropolitan area, where the coronavirus situation was most severe in France, a mask that was waiting to be ordered in advance was stolen by Americans who offered a higher amount at the last minute. It was a moment of despair that even the medical staff could not wear because of the lack of medical masks, but the market reacted coldly. The same was true of the vaccine to end the corona crisis. There is tremendous competition in New York State to get the vaccine first, and there has been legal action for distributing the vaccine first to wealthy people who pay huge sums for violating state guidelines. The President of the Philippines has also threatened to end the agreement on which the two countries will conduct joint military exercises if the United States does not provide at least 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

If the world has become a market and the competition for securing even a little more of the resources in the planet has been under water until now, it seems that it is now rising to the surface and disrupting the world. In particular, China, which has been distributing resources with the strong power of the central government, seems no exception as the coronavirus began and the nation was strongly blocked. A paper published in 2021 explains how unbalanced China’s medical resources are and proposes to use blockchain to address this.

(Distribution of medical resources in the western (left)/central (right) regions of China, source: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/1/52)

As you can see right away from the picture, the western medical resources are relatively evenly distributed. On the other hand, there is a huge gap in medical resources in the central region, where the capital city of Beijing and Inner Mongolia are distributed. No matter how powerful the Chinese government may be, it has limitations in distributing resources evenly. This disparity is further exacerbated by the unified forms of information and opaque data sharing in each province, the paper explains.

(Blockchain-based medical resource distribution mechanism, source: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/1/52)

As a solution to this, based on the ease of tracking, safety, and anonymity provided by the decentralized blockchain, the resource management system scattered for each region is integrated into one, using the processing technology and smart contract technologies that are gradually developing. It is a suggestion to build a platform where governments and institutions can cooperate. He said that all the shortcomings in China’s current medical resource distribution system can be solved through the advantages of blockchain technology.

#Blockchain Questions

Blockchain seems to ask: In order to create a fairer world, we must communicate with each other in understandable words and treat each other transparently and honestly.

The world seems to be becoming more opaque in the era of massive digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI). The difference between my image reflected on social media and video calls and the reality outside the camera angle is only getting bigger. AI not only changes our appearance in camera applications, but also makes things that don’t exist in the world, even people who don’t exist, disturbing the perception of each person. And whether you have the relevant skills or can use them, widens the social gap. Blockchain, though not yet complete. But it struggles to tell us what the truth is, and offers a way to make the process transparent. The questions and possibilities presented by the blockchain about the changes in the world brought by Corona are now waiting for human answers. Now is the time for us to answer. How would you answer the blockchain question?

Dae-Seung Lee, Ophthalmologist, Hanyang University IAB Advisory Professor