The reason otherwise intelligent people willingly volunteer to sign their personal freedoms away to go live in a cult compound is because they have been indoctrinated to believe it's the right thing to do.
Not everyone that applies to bethel gets accepted it's held out as a "privilege" there are only so many ways you can "serve" or advance your theocratic career and going to bethel is one of them gilead is another the bar being set pretty high for both.
Nothing wrong with a bit of healthy ambition cults take advantage of it actually, they just call it "reaching out."