Paranoia is a re-implementation of [acts\_as\_paranoid](http://github.com/technoweenie/acts_as_paranoid) for Rails 3 and Rails 4, using much, much, much less code.
You would use either plugin / gem if you wished that when you called `destroy` on an Active Record object that it didn't actually destroy it, but just *hide* the record. Paranoia does this by setting a `deleted_at` field to the current time when you `destroy` a record, and hides it by scoping all queries on your model to only include records which do not have a `deleted_at` field.
When your app is using Paranoia, calling `destroy` on an ActiveRecord object doesn't actually destroy the database record, but just *hides* it. Paranoia does this by setting a `deleted_at` field to the current time when you `destroy` a record, and hides it by scoping all queries on your model to only include records which do not have a `deleted_at` field.
If you wish to actually destroy an object you may call `really_destroy!`. **WARNING**: This will also *really destroy* all `dependent: :destroy` records, so please aim this method away from face when using.
