Scala asInstanceOf with parameterized types?

Unfortunately, this in an inherent limitation of asInstanceOf . I'm actually surprised to see the scaladoc mention it in details.

You are indeed correct - type erasure means that you cannot "cast" in such a way as to distinguish between ListInt and ListString, for example. However, you can improve on the cast which you are performing, whereby A is erased in such a way as to mean that you cannot distinguish between an Int and a String.

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