I haven't heard an N word in a long long time, and I don't ever see f-slur unless it's from an online nazi.

R slur though - all the time.

I think people are definitely sick of language/tone policing in general, especially because it's been so co-opted by limp liberal establishments (from bougie academics to Raytheon) and HR departments.

But I also think it's a natural response to constant surveillance and billions of digital footprints. Everyone's got a camera on them, and everyone's got an online past. And everyone's seen that getting cancelled doesn't really matter. The worst of them will lose their job, but that's about it. And you have to be doing something pretty bad for that to happen (or wear a palestine badge). Combine that with general deterioration, and you'll see that people just don't care.

I also think the uptick of ADHD and autism diagnoses means that there's a lot of people who feel they have some right to say it.

To be honest, in my entire life I've never seen the term used for an actual intellectually disabled person (outside of old films). The term seems to just mean 'severe idiot' these days. There happens to be a lot of 'severe idiots' out there in the world right now.