Well, the guy who asked them to do this looked like one of them and being the innocent, trusting yeshiva bochrim that they are, they fell in. Hindsight is 20/20. We all say now, “What were they thinking?” But, we don’t know what happened or how it was presented to them. Who knows if we would’ve done differently had we been in their situation?
As far as being clueless about the world, they probably were.
~a~