Well, Columbus himself didn't conquer much. He established a few settlement, but the real conquering was done by others.
More accurate comparison would be:
Describe Hernan Cortez in one word.
(GPT-4) Conquistador
Columbus and his men killed a lot of people brutally. He wasn't really a conqueror, more a murderer and a monster
He is far from distinguished in that endeavor. What makes him relevant to history is the part where he found people to brutalize, way the fuck elsewhere.
The Mongols just saw some towns out across the grasslands and said "I'll have that." Ad nauseum.
Technically, he didn't even find them first. Not only did Christopher Columbus never step foot on the NA continent, but Norsemen such as Leif Erikson were there before him centuries earlier. John Cabot made a much larger contribution to that.
Historical nitpicks and footnootes. The unambiguous inflection point for all of Europe going "holy shit, new lands" was that Italian schmuck and his three boats.
Leif and company went "hey look, more Greenland" and barely amounted to Discovery channel dramatization. The century after Columbus's return transformed three continents.
Yet they both committed atrocities (torture, murder, rape and god knows what else) and only one is being hailed as “explorer”.
Edit: I’m not saying we should hail Genghis Khan as an explorer, I’m saying that Christopher Columbus should be deplored as a murderer and a marauder, not praised as an explorer.
Being a murderer and explorer are not mutually exclusive. If ChatGPT said "Murderer" one might presume that he was simply a local killer, captured by the law, and convicted a la Ted Bundy. Explorer is a more appropriate title for Columbus, like "Dictator" is likely more appropriate than "Murderer" for Hitler. Murderer, sadly, is too commonplace for people of their evil.
For real. Name the worst serial killer you know, and Columbus was probably worse than that. It sickens me to read about it.
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Why do we assume ‘explorer’ has a positive moral implication?
To me, looking through all of history, exploration has largely been a net negative to humanity. Modern day exploration isn’t terribly far off. The more we explore the ocean the more we strip it of resources. The more we explore space the more we look to exploit it for wealth.
Explorers are enablers of worse people at best.
But this is accurate. Columbus was an explorer, that was his mission. I've read his letters to Spain and he wanted to find bounty for the Spanish crown to convince them to give him more money. He murdered, tortured, enslaved kidnapped, interrogated, and raped people to find even more bounty. But he was an explorer, not a conquistador or conqueror. Those were military positions.
This post is ignorant.
Do you think Native Americans would agree to define him as an explorer too, then?
But this is accurate. Columbus was an explorer, that was his mission. I've read his letters to Spain and he wanted to find bounty for the Spanish crown to convince them to give him more money.
And Adolf Hitler was a politician. That was his “mission”. We don’t define Hitler by his career though.
He murdered, tortured, enslaved kidnapped, interrogated, and raped people to find even more bounty.
I guess he went above and beyond on that mission, yeah? By your definition he seems more like a bounty-hunter/privateer and not an explorer, but worse in every way. (And how is rape supposed to tie into this narrative about his goal of securing more funding anyway?)
But he was an explorer, not a conquistador or conqueror. Those were military positions.
So by your logic, not having a military position pardons any atrocities he committed and waives the reason to call him anything other than “explorer”? He was a butcher and a rapist. That’s a fact.
You don’t need a rank and a hat to become a sanctioned piece of shit. That can happen sans the hat.
This post is ignorant.
Is this your opinion, or an “accurate” fact too?
Your defensiveness betrays your ignorance. That's my opinion.
No body is pardoning anything, and insinuating that I am invalidates everything you just wrote, embarrasses you, and removes all my interest in talking to you further.
Wait, were you not being sarcastic with your comment? No one takes the justifications of history's monsters as fact. Like, I get Christopher Columbus thought he was an explorer who discovered things. It doesn't change the fact he murdered people and found things that were already discovered. I'm sure most of the people who committed atrocities in history have cute alternative names they would prefer were used to cover up what they did. We separate the historical fiction that historical figures would impose on us from the historical facts of what they actually did.
"Look, I get it, everyone has a story and contains multitudes and all, but the paperwork from the children's hospital clearly says he was officially contracted as an "Entertainer and Humorist," so that's the title we need to refer to this John Wayne Gacy with. It's just basic professionalism."
It's funny cause yeah, John Wayne Gacy was a clown, and if you ask something or someone to describe him in one word, you might get clown with no other context.
When you see Gacy described in books, movies, videos, etc. they usually list both clown and serial killer in the title and show a picture of him as a clown.
How many words do I need to ask for before I get murderer added to Christopher Columbus, or genocide with Ghengis Khan. Like the opinion on Christopher Columbus only really changed starting in 2005ish, before that they were singing kids songs about that sociopath since the 40's. That's a lot of history of "explorer".
Like one word removes context no matter what, who would they be a yard stick used in any sense?
He was a butcher and a rapist. That’s a fact.
But not a conquerer. Genghis Khan was a butcher and rapist too.
Man, you gotta know if ChatGPT returned Hitler as "interested in ancestry and hotel art" it wouldn't be good no matter how pedantically true it is
I would think he should be called "Dictator" or are we straying from the one word examples? It is not pedantic to call Columbus an explorer. It wouldn't be unreasonable to use other single words, maybe "Colonizer" but he wasn't really that either. Most of what people are suggesting are highly colored by emotion. I'm not seeing the controversy in "Explorer" unless you have a very childish/naive connotation with that word to mean only fun, exciting, and adventurous. Exploring can be evil.
POV: You've discovered an example of how LLMs are biased by their training data.
This is expected behavior. LLMs can't reason. They only return a representation of their statistically weighted input data. Most of the internet calls Columbus an explorer who "discovered" turtle island and Kahn a conquering warlord.
Edit: just discovered that OP has probably figured this out, too; judging by the post title.
Highlighting the point that it is not good at critically examining its sources of information. Because it cannot do anything that requires critical thinking.
"Use one word to describe this person who did many things."
ChatGPT: Does exactly that
"Noooo, why are you not adding the important context I want you to add?"
What did you expect, exactly?
(Replying to yours to officially welcome you into this pile of brothers/sisters/siblings where we type in parentheses and where none shall be ever lonely)
(Checking in on this "pile of brothers/sisters/siblings" to see where me and my Mommy-Sister can fit)