> They pay a lot dividends to other provinces that are now broke because they sold ownership of their resources to third parties.

This is not exactly true. Quebec doesn’t pay anything to other provinces, in fact it is the biggest recipient of Equalization Payments, by a huge margin.

From Catalonia, and this is almost spot on.

The only thing being that not only businesses disrespect our culture, but the government and current main party do it too. And have been doing for some time.

They are descendants (sometimes literally) from the ones directing the dictatorship that ruled Spain until 40 years ago.

And they act like they had the same kind of power.

People that disrespect Catalonia, I can count them with the fingers in my hand. Catalonia is one of the most productive regions in Spain, and also the one with the greater deeds. Big businesses are mostly in Barcelona and Madrid, and more in Barcelona. Tourist from inside the country visit Catalonia as much as other regions. Catalonia is not hated, but politicians and independentists are making us hate it.

Looking at it from the outside it does seem to be some contempt towards Catalan people, like referring to them as polacos (Polish, I guess because the speak “weird”). It also feels like when Catalan governments have tried to discuss the model of autonomy/government and the relationship between central government and autonomous governance and there’s an almost childish reaction from the central government.

They were called "polacos" because during the civil war people said that Catalonia was a province of Russia.

> other provinces disrespect their culture and right to be different

Hmm... that's a pretty backwards thinking. Insisting on "the right to be different" is kind of what's disrespectful to the other cultures!

So it's same shit again. I'd never thought we'd miss the good ol' "global village" thing, and "English for all", and "one European government" movements. That sounded horrible but was actually working well for average people that wanted a homogeneous culture that allowed the right and possibility to easily move freely from one country/place to another instead of having to "grow roots" like a fking tree.

There's a whole bunch o people and businesses that want a more homogeneous worldwide culture and the whole freedoms and possibility for a more nomadic lifestyle that this allows. And of companies that can easily expand across borders instead of always having to hire useless locals to "oil the gears" of cross-cultural integration or whatever...

How right to move implies homogeneous culture? These are completely different things. If you can move form Spain to Poland without being detained on the border, that does not imply Spain and Poland now has to have the same culture.

> There's a whole bunch o people and businesses that want a more homogeneous worldwide culture

I'm sure some do. It's very convenient to not have to learn languages, customs, cultures, etc. but just fly whereever you want and not have to work even a bit on trying to learn how the local people live. It is not happening though, people are not going to throw their cultures away just because some travellers are too lazy to learn something they don't yet know.

> always having to hire useless locals

Nice one.

...I know it sounded like a "pro faceless international corporations" rant, but in most less developed countries aggresive globalization helps the young lower/middle-class working individuals most, who, believe it or not, actually want to "get the f out" of their mostly toxic cultures that is only stiffling innovation and keeping people in poverty.

The whole "union in diversity" and "reviving local culture" movement only helps countries and regions that are rich in relation to others to stay rich in relation to others. Hopefully in Europe the whole war incited movement of people around helped with some shaking and mixing and setting the middle east on fire a lil' bit to move people in and out enough to "wash the culture from them" helped both sides (because some will return to their countries, and with a more "westernalized" mentality).

It's kind of sad to see regions of countries like Spain that pull in the "retrograde" direction when we finally had a breath of fresh air, violent as it was... bigger countries, with less cultural identity, offer more freedom to the individuals simply because they free them from the oppression of local cultures and a true-EU sounded like a move in the right direction. That's what people never get: in a small country, a local tyrant can really tyranize the s out of you (think NK), while in an empire-ish bureaucracy you can be free as hell, especially if you're not the kind of person that "fits in" or "embraces the culture" (take countries like China where you can have an utterly tyranical government, but regions with lots of local identity and lots of freedom like Shenzen). When something is too big to control without bankrupting it, like an oversized country, or an overgrown "international faceless corporation", you get tons of freedom (as an individual) as a byproduct... and it's the best kind of freedom because it's also free (like in... "you don't pay for it" :P).

> who, believe it or not, actually want to "get the f out"

It would be more noble to try and fix the culture, instead, since if all people that don't like backwards culture get the f out, by definition the ones who left are those that like backwards culture, thus ensuring it stays backwards forever. But I understand that people have right to take care of themselves first and don't owe anybody heroic effort on fixing a broken culture. Sometimes getting out it the best you can do.

Still, that does not mean somebody needs to change their culture so it would be comfortable for somebody else to move around.

> bigger countries

What's good in that, except more expensive and out of touch bureaucracy? Everything nice you can do in big country - like unifying standards, removing customs borders, etc. - you can also do as an agreement between small countries. But if (or, rather, when) bigger government wants to do something stupid - it would be nice for the stupidity to be contained. It is a basic evolutionary principle - monocultures are extremely fragile and one big mistake or one big adversarial change can kill the whole culture. Union of many diverse cultures is much more robust to both mistakes (culture that made a mistake goes down, and the rest take up the space) and change (again, cultures that can adapt poorly to a particular change, wither and get replaced by ones that can adapt well, but at least they not die out as a whole).

> in a small country, a local tyrant can really tyranize the s out of you

And in a big country, a global tyrant can really tyranize the s out of you, 100 million other people and 50 countries around you. See USSR.

> while in an empire-ish bureaucracy you can be free as hell

You obviously never lived in a tyrannical empire. I did (even though I had the luck of it being on its last leg by then). Not recommended at all.

> you get tons of freedom (as an individual) as a byproduct

No, you don't. Of course, in USSR in the 80s one was relatively more free than in NK, but it's just a peculiarity of specific time - in late 30s in USSR it was probably much worse than in NK now.

Catalonians don't have a very different culture. They're as dumb illogical in their demands, football-loving, perfid nationalistic as any other Spaniard. The current situation is the best proof of it.

Do you have a source for the dividends thing? I've always seen/heard that Quebec takes an insane amount of Provincial Equalization funds - like almost 10x more or something like that.