With great sadness the news reached us today (via Patrice Riemens) of the death of the Italian ‘general intellect’ writer Benedetto Vecchi. He was responsible for the cultural section of the Italian dialy Il Manifesto. Vecchi was involved in Euronomade and the author of a number of books on internet culture–a topic that my generation really cares about (Benedetto was born a week before me). In March 2017 he co-organized a meeting on platform capitalism in Milan. As a tribute I am linking to his recent review of my Sad by Design book, which came out, first in Italian, in April 2019 under the title Digital Nihilsm. Il codice sorgente della tristezza. Considerazioni sul nuovo saggio di Geert Lovink Nichilismo digitale appeared on the Euronomade website, here. Enjoy more Italian and read Paolo Virno’s personal web memorial of Benedetto. Teresa Numerico, who closely collaborated with him, wrote to me that Benedetto had serious heart problems and an aggressive form of tyroid cancer. “However, he was struggling hard against it. His death happened suddenly because of breathing problems. He was a generous and strong person that never gave up his fight against the illness. He struggled for the dignity of his condition and that’s why he kept on working until the last day. The night before he died he consigned his last newspaper edition. The event was expected and unexpected at the same time. The situation was desperate and he wanted to die while standing, and he succeeded in doing so. He was hands-on until the end and we will all miss him dearly.” Ciao Ben!