Welcome to the first edition of the "Starting Point for a New Civilization" CD-ROM!

None of us know exactly what the future will bring. But we might have an idea of some of the things we want in it; some of the qualities and values of life we would like to see prevail; some of the possibilities we'd like to explore.

This present CD provides a collection of possible places to start the creation and exploration of a new, better civilization on our planet.

The materials you find here are a snapshot of the contents of the Internet server of the newciv.org domain. This is already a lively meeting place for constructive new ideas and world-changing projects.

What we've done here is to provide you with a handy package where some of these materials are permanently preserved.

Everything you find here can also be accessed over the Internet. However, this CD provides you with several benefits:

- No matter what might change in the hectic world of the Internet, you always have these materials in your possession, and you can be confident that you always know where to find them.

- You don't have to spend time and money waiting for all of this to be downloaded to your computer. You can peruse it even if you don't have an Internet connection at all.

You can also use this disk as a starting point to explore further materials on the Internet. Much material is already permanently stored on the CD, but you will also find links to much, much more on the World Wide Web. If you don't have an open connection to the Internet you can take your time and peruse what is on this CD. And, while you are connected to the Internet, you can click on some of the external links to more materials and access them on the web with your favorite web browswer.

You'll notice that we didn't define for you what The New Civilization is exactly, and that is for good reason. See, there is no one new civilization that is pre-defined. New Civilization is a term to encompass the exciting, positive, possible future that we are creating together. Or, more correctly, we could say that we are creating many futures. There might be many diverse ideas about what goes into those futures, but yet there are certain values that many of us would agree about.

We wish you all the best on your journey towards a new civilization. Hopefully we can travel the roads together.

Flemming Funch

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