I think you completely missed the point. They're not saying genz should be the adults in the room.

They're surprised that a generation who never drew breath without the internet came of age without the wisdom they hypothesized such a life would avail.

You gotta understand: earlier generations couldn't trivially verify things. Anyone they ever interacted with were the people like... On their street. Diversity of thought was informed by limited contact. The internet, at one point, appeared to promise a radical solution to both. The optimism for the future, as a result, was essentially unbounded.

It's not fair to ask gen z to save anyone. I don't think its what buddy was saying, but if it was, it was unfair.

I think buddy was coming to the very late realization that the optimism of the transformative nature of the internet was misplaced. The hypothesis just didn't pan out. You can give a human for their entire lives the ability to get the answer to any question, verify anything they're told, and meet and talk to people with diverse viewpoints that may challenge what they're exposed to based on proximity...

... And ultimately they're just about as dumb as anyone else.

And I get the impression that, more than anything else, is what makes them sad.

You're 100% right. I never said they don't have an excuse now, all I said is that they once did. I carefully worded my sentence for a reason.

Meanwhile Gen-Z never had an excuse for ignorance. That's my point.