Oh this is a huge rabbit hole for me. I am not so triggered by perpetual motion machines, perhaps because I regard them as too ridiculous for that idea to spread dangerously or I don't know people who believe in them, but I am quite triggered by other types of pseudo-science, typically a lot of alternative medicine, new age stuff, quantum pseudo-science, that are more wide spread around me. I am also triggered by pseudo-science gurus that spread literally anti-scientific things making people believe that science has it wrong, but of course they get it and if only people listened to them the world would be much better. This kind of people typically rally people who felt humiliated in math class and want to get revenge over their teachers by knowing better than them and owning the "science dogma", like the "student vs teacher" fantasy. One guy like this in france was exposed a few years ago. He was all over the place on TV and was spreading ridiculous BS everywhere and was a manipulator, and was eventually exposed for having faked his resume. Journalists kept inviting him because they didn't think it was important to check his background nor to ask "other" experts in the fields he was talking about. He was saying that scientists have a closed mind because they never thought of imitating nature. He said for example that there is some plankton in the sea that produces silicon nanoparticles and so scientists should have imitated nature instead of being arrogant and spending so much time trying to make microprocessors on their own because plankton was doing it long before them. It's an example that speaks to me because I have worked in this field, and really, that comparison is as ridiculous as saying that "rocks roll when we put them on a hill's side, so it's the same as a formula one car, and people who build formula one cars are stupid because they should have imitated rocks who knew how to do it long before them". Really when you know about microelectronics it's exactly as stupid as that, I am not kidding, and this guy was all over the place on TV, and I had a friend who was a fan of his. This guru was saying that our education system is broken (it might be, but well...) and that diplomas a worthless because they are produced by a closed-minded system, but he, to the contrary, was open minded, and if only people read his books and bla bla bla. But his whole thing was a hoax, he was passing as an expert when he had literally nothing. That kind of thing is so triggering for me..... (as you can see).
So I don't know any good solution for that problem specifically, but what brings me comfort is to not listen to these people too much, hang around on skeptic networks, the calm ones if I wanted to learn things about these people and understand how we function and how they are not so different from me in some way, and the rough ones if I need to hear someone say that they are just stupid and ridiculous, just to calm my nerves. From my experience, hanging around people like this can make me feel powerless and can be draining, but talking about these subjects with people who understand is relieving. So avoiding the topics is sometimes better. Also, I have a problem where when I am confronted with something like this, either I ignore the problem if I don't want to argue with a friend for example, and I would act like it's all ok but I am often boiling inside, or I engage in a debate that is sometimes (but not always) not so fruitful. But the other option I am trying to get used to now is to just say "you know I am not so much into these things" or that "this is a bit of a triggering topic for me" and add that I prefer if we speak about something else. Usually people would want to ask why and still try to debate so I have to insist a bit. But this way I can avoid the debate and still state my position and not look like I validate them.
About perpetual motion machines, if I remember correctly there are also youtube videos of people who make fake perpetual motion videos to trick people only to reveal the trick at the end of the video or in their next video just to show them they should not trust these things and that a video proves nothing.
