If it does == on it. The equals method of the data class could be causing it

that was the issue, overrode equals with this === other and the issue has gone away

It seems this gentleman came up with a way to create a modal for State. Like a weird crossbreed step-child of fragment and recyclerview. When your dataset changes recyclerview calls updaterecyclerview. If you look down at the bottom the recompose function is a way to force rerender/update. I'm sure people way more creative than me can find some ingenious way to utilize that.