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Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: The potential Scottish independence from the UK. Both sides (pro/con) and the history of the issue. (Curious American).

Title really summarizes the idea of this thread. I first heard of this issue today on the frontpage and I am really curious on to how this issue came to be. I would love to see discussion on how the independence from the UK would be beneficial or detrimental to Scotland. Thank you!

EDIT: Please don't downvote opinions that are against your own. The point of this thread is to inform, and both views do exactly that.

EDIT^2: Wow, thank you victoriacakes for that excellent summary. It seems like it could really go both ways, and I can understand why it's such a touchy subject. However, there are still 2 years ahead of us and a lot of things can change, I would love to see more dialogue and more interpretations. Thanks everyone!
gpt
You are not going to get an ubiased answer because the facts about the potential consequences aren't really known, so right now a lot of people are just making up things that they would like to be true and cherry-picking sources to support that.

From an economic standpoint, pro-union people say that this would suck for Scotland because Scotland would have to re-apply to join the EU and be forced to join the Euro. They also say the oil will run out soon and Scotland won't be able to subsist on oil forever. The basic idea is that Scotland will be a lot poorer and worse off if they are independent, in addition to which they will have less political power because they will become a small, mostly irrelevant, country.

Pro-independence people say that they won't have to rejoin the EU since they are already part of the EU, they won't have to take the Euro if they don't want to, that they will do well from their other industries and tourism etc and not just oil. That they won't be poor and won't be worse off without the UK.

It's pretty much impossible to predict what would happen, since for every source you can provide supporting one side of the issue you can get another equally valid source stating the opposite. Anyone insisting to you that their prediction is the only correct one is simply trying to get you to agree with their bias.

From an ideological perspective, many pro-independence people feel that they are "ruled from the South" and that they aren't duly represented in parliament, which is not unreasonable when you consider the two parties Scotland gave the most votes to in the 2010 general election were Labour and the Scottish National Party, and it's the Tories/Lib Dems who are actually in power in the UK (Scotland historically hates the Tories). So the UK government is actually the complete opposite of how most Scots would like it to look. A lot of people believe that Scotland will do better governing itself than being governed by people that they don't support and didn't vote for. 

From the other side, unionists might say that they think Scotland is better off as part of a union in a powerful country than being a smaller, marginalised country. That our last Prime Minister was Scottish and that Scotland already gets enough of its own autonomy via the Scottish Parliament. And as well that the Scottish can't expect more representation than they already have considering they only have 5 million people to England's 53 million.

Culturally, there are some people that think Scottish culture is a completely separate thing to English/British culture, and they don't feel "British" and as a result don't feel any need to be part of a union. On the other hand, England/Scotland have been together for a long time and have shared a lot of culture over that time and there are plenty of people who don't feel alienated from "British culture", whatever that may be. 

Of course, not everyone who has chosen a side would agree with the stances I've given as examples for their side, but imo these are the things that come up most commonly in debates.

Historically, the modern day movement began when oil was discovered in the North Sea. Basically, a lot of people got the idea (right or wrong) that if they left the UK and didn't have to share the prosperity in the oil, Scotland could be a lot better off and support itself. At the time Scotland was having some economic problems, i.e. industries were moving away and leaving a lot of poor people behind in their wake. So the idea of an independent Scotland living off oil riches was pretty tantalising.  From then on it's been a growing movement, and led to the creation of the Scottish Assembly and a lot of devolution in government.

As an aside, there are also plenty of people in Scotland who buy into the whole Braveheart-"FREEDOM!" thing and just hate England because it's how they've been brought up and it's how all their friends think and they haven't really thought about it further than that. And there's probably a lot of people who will vote no because they are afraid of change.