1.) I won't comment on specific symbolism and associations that use it, and in the end, it's quite unimportant. Economics and communications technology relies heavily on the mathematical sciences.

2) I have studied semiotics, which is essential to memetics. My credentials are irrelevant though, and I am not attempting to convince. The reasoning in brief (and crudely explained) is that nomatter how much you attempt to coerce or exert force other social evolution, it doesn't work. In quick time culture develops antibodies against such a viral memetic infection; it's an arms race one always loses. The only way is through true symbiosis, and the more complete and reciprocal the symbiotism is, the more effective.

One reason why this is so is that if a method for subverting others' wills is found, especially if mathematical in nature (such as in game theory models) it will escape into the wild in short order. The "antibodies" that the larger culture (essentially other individuals) develop will use the virus itself. The attempt backfires: more tools are released into the wild to combat such attempts.

1. Popularity is everything because populations are everything; no population, no natural or memetic selection.

2. Nobody is an originator of any concept, only a permutation. Every mathematician has worked by studying source material and going from there. In fact, you can see how we used the source material in the book "The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton vol 1" which I have studied a small bit. Of particular interest is his October 1666 tract on fluxions, around page 444.

3. I'm not sure what "thinking in linear time" means :)

4. How is game theory reptilian? It is merely a field of mathematics like any other. Is multiplication reptilian, or mammalian? It is a mathematical science used every day in economics and negotiation. Of course, the ultimate in game theory would be a sort of meta-game theory that derives the solution to all dilemmas where all or both sides are winners, or at the very least no losers.