Infinite Growth Within Finite World?

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."

--Agent Smith (The Matrix)

The Rosy Picture
From the "On-line Textbook of Bacteriology" we learn that in a closed system such as a test tube, and a favorable environment, bacteria will grow happily. Initially, in the lag phase, it spends some time to adjust itself to its newfound environment. Then the cells start dividing regularly, and the bacteria will start doubling its population at regular intervals, exponentially. Something like this:

Exponential growth - the increase in the end result continuously accelerates

Looking at this chart, fairy tales and the words "... and they lived happily ever after" come to mind. Nice if it only was so simple!
However, this is precisely how we have come to see our world today. Towards more and more growth, more consumption, more resources, more this and that. Even increasingly more and more money in our pockets as inflation causes it's purchasing power to evaporate, requiring us to carry more and more around with us.
So if everything is so rosy as officially presented, why does it feel like something's a bit fishy with this picture? Why are there austerity measures and strikes against them? Why are there debts that can not be paid? Why are the food and fuel prices high and getting higher every year?
Conventional media does not seem to have the answers as more and more of the same is fed to us on a continuous basis. Perhaps we need to turn back to our bacteriology book and apply the high science of biology to the human world. Because aren't humans part of the biology of this world? So let's go to the chapter about "The Growth of Bacterial Populations", page 3.

Not So Rosy Picture
What we learn from the book is that in a closed system such as our test tube from above, brakes to growth will be applied eventually as the resources for growth are being depleted. And isn't it obvious? A test tube is, after all, just a test tube and not an infinitely expanding balloon! The guys living in there will obviously run out of real estate sooner or later! Bingo!
Having learned this fact, applying brakes to our "Happily ever after" chart makes it look quite a bit uglier:

Growth and collapse of bacteria population in a closed system

Turns out that after the initial growth comes a stationary period during which the limits to the "happily ever after" model are being tested and applied. What follows is the death period, clearly the exact opposite of the initially suggested happy ending. Apparently when limits have been hit but normalcy has been defined by a continuous growth and the growth processes still want to carry on, the population will actually decrease when growth suddenly becomes impossible. Death phase also takes place exponentially in a continuously accelerating manner.

Thoughts

The point to take home from here is simple - do not live so that your livelihood is dependent on exponential growth within limited resources, because that is the formula to death. For growth to continue indefinitely, it's important to make sure that there are no limits to growth. Perhaps there is an exit door, but we'll look at that at another time.